Smoke and Mirrors
by Edhla
Summary: Physically and emotionally shattered after a case goes wrong, Sherlock agrees to take John and Lestrade to investigate a "haunted house" on the Essex border. Meanwhile, Molly uncovers a shocking scandal at Barts. *Season 3 AU*
1. The Accused

_** A/N-** This is a season 3 AU, the seventh in a series that begins with After the Fall. As such, it does not take into account any events in season 3 or any characters unique to that series. Any resemblance to those plots is entirely unintentional, and my characterisations are internally sound but may not always square with official canon._

_ The events dealt with in the first chapter of this story are contained in the one before it, On the Sixth Day._

_ Once again, this is based on a real-life case. Borley Rectory was the subject of many paranormal investigations during the 1920s and 1930s. These were mainly conducted by then-famous paranormal researcher Harry Price. Many of the characters, legends, events and locations mentioned in the following story are also based on real events and people._

* * *

Sherlock Holmes cleared his throat and looked calmly across the crowded courtroom at Paul Doherty. Doherty did not return his gaze; he had kept his head down ever since he'd been placed in the dock, still as the statue of blind Justice. The high windows of the courtroom revealed a fine shower of dust, perhaps centuries old, floating down on his stubbled head. But beside him, the bull-necked Brian Merchant was as skittish as a calf. The judge, the estimable Justice Pinkerton, had more than once told the more dim-witted of the accused to pay attention and take the proceedings against him more seriously.

"Mr. Holmes," Miranda Davis, defence barrister representing Messrs Doherty and Merchant, urged Sherlock without force. She was a solemn, fortyish woman whose skill and no-nonsense attitude were belied by a snub nose smattered with freckles and unruly, greying red hair. By way of calming his nerves, Sherlock had already deduced that she lied about her age, that she had two children with a Turkish man she wasn't married to and who was five years her junior, that she had a secret love for EastEnders and her favourite tipple of choice was Sambuca. "You told my learned friend that at the time you were dragged out of the car by your feet, you heard a screech of car tyres on the road, and then a car door slam."

"Yes." Sherlock heard his voice hit the courthouse walls and ricochet like a bullet. His eyes momentarily met Doherty's.

_Wake up, sunshine._

He blinked and brought them back to Davis.

"Did you hear nothing else, Mr. Holmes?" she continued calmly. "No voices?"

"Objection, your honour," Keith Allen, barrister for the Crown, interjected. "Leading the witness."

"Upheld." Justice Pinkerton's gnarled hands curled over the lectern before him like a gargoyle's. "Mr. Holmes, you are not required to answer that question."

Sherlock took a breath, a little grateful that he was not being asked to recount that he _had_ heard a voice: his own, making a distinctly unmasculine squeal of pain. He glanced up into the gallery, where John was sitting, and then down toward the back of the courtroom to Greg Lestrade. It would be Lestrade's turn to give evidence after the midday recess, and John was being called upon the following morning. It even looked likely that the Crown was going to call upon Molly to give evidence about the condition of Stephen's severed ears when she'd examined them. And then, of course, Mycroft...

Well, there was clearly nothing better for keeping old friends together than a nice old case of kidnapping, torture and murder, he reflected. After this, they should all go out for teppanyaki and chat it up about what fun it had been.

Lestrade frowned at him, then nodded slightly. Sherlock turned back to Davis, flinching as his spine gave a vicious spasm of protest at being moved too abruptly.

"Mr. Holmes?"

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth, focusing on her. "Continue."

"Are you certain?"

"Continue," he hissed.

There was a brief silence; Sherlock closed his eyes and awaited Davis's next calm, calculated question.

"How many times did you hear the car door, Mr. Holmes?" she asked, apparently totally unperturbed by Pinkerton's earlier reprimand. Sherlock knew why: _you can't unask a question._ The jury would be sure to note the implication that if Sherlock admitted he did not clearly see or hear Paul Doherty during the first few minutes after being kidnapped, he couldn't prove it was he who did the kidnapping.

He looked at her calmly. "I'm afraid I wasn't counting," he said. "My priorities were elsewhere: in not dying, in escaping, and in avoiding pain wherever possible, in that descending order."

"So you cannot confirm for a fact that there was only one other person with you at that time?"

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "No."

"What happened after you were dragged out of the car?"

For the first time in his cross-examination, Sherlock hesitated for a reason unrelated to the odd twinge in his back or arm. He glanced back at Lestrade, who gave him another encouraging nod.

"My next memory is of being thrown onto the floor of what I later found out was the Eccles Rowing Club headquarters," he finally said.

"And our map references indicate that this is a mile from the spot you were dragged out of the car, indicating that there is quite a gap in your memory. Mr. Holmes, why do you suppose this gap exists?"

Sherlock shut his eyes and drew a slow breath. "If you'd been paying attention to my initial evidence, you would know that the hospital later confirmed that I had a serious concussion," he told her. "I probably I don't remember any further because I was beaten beside the road and transported to the clubhouse while I was unconscious, or very close to it."

"But you cannot confirm that you were?"

"Oh, for God's _sake_. I just told you I was _unconscious_ and there is a gap in my memory; to be able to confirm I was knocked unconscious would be to confirm that I was _not_ knocked unconscious, do you see how that works? Now you're just wasting my time, and the time of everyone in this courtroom."

"Nonetheless, Mr. Holmes, it's my job to – "

"Why don't you ask Paul Doherty to confirm it for you?" he snarled at her, resting both palms against the smooth wood of the lectern. "Despite your rather pathetic attempts to establish reasonable doubt, it doesn't detract from the fact that he was there."

He glanced up at John again, but John's face was set and his arms were folded. There was a sudden movement in Sherlock's peripheral vision, and turning his head he could see that Julian Hubert, his psychologist, was leaning over Keith Allen's desk and muttering something to him. Miranda Davis, however, ignored the minor ripple that Sherlock's remark had created in the courtroom behind her.

"Could you please identify, if possible, the person who did this to you, Mr. Holmes?"

"Already done it. Have you forgotten already?" Sherlock sighed and pointed languidly. "There," he said. "Paul Doherty."

Davis pursed her lips. "Yet you say you were knocked unconscious, Mr. Holmes, and that your memories surrounding that incident are confused – "

"Your honour, Mr. Holmes _never_ said that he was confused in any way as to what happened," Allen objected again.

"Upheld," Pinkerton said grimly. "Miss Davis, kindly allow the witness to use his own words. And may I remind you that neither you nor Mr. Holmes are doctors, and you are not in a position to provide conjecture on his injuries at that time and what effect they may or may not have had on his ability to recall information correctly. We have a number of medical experts who have been called in to give that evidence themselves."

"Oh, my God, just _stop_ _this_," Sherlock growled through his hands, giving a petulant stamp of his heel. "I've been tolerating this for an hour. 'Oh, don't expect Mr. Holmes to correctly remember a sequence of events'. 'Oh, Mr. Holmes can't possibly recall what his injuries felt like.' 'Oh, a broken arm would surely prevent Mr. Holmes from being able to plainly identify someone by sight.' 'Oh, Mr. Holmes is a nervous wreck whose testimony is worthless.' Considering I was _there_, I think there's no better person to give a full account of my injuries – "

"Your honour." Intercepting a look from Julian Hubert, Keith Allen was on his feet again, cutting off both Sherlock's complaint and Pinkerton's less-than-impressed response at being snapped at in his own courtroom. "Your honour, Mr. Holmes's psychologist requests a fifteen-minute recess so that his client can settle his agitation and regroup."

Sherlock looked up at him. "What?" he blurted out, eyes darting back and forth in alarm. "No, I'm not _agitated_, and I certainly don't need to regroup."

"Nonetheless, I imagine there are some in the courtroom who would appreciate a short break in the proceedings," Justice Pinkerton said, glancing at Hubert. "In light of that, I'm granting a recess. We will recommence in a quarter of an hour."

* * *

John was on his feet almost as soon as Pinkerton had spoken, but Lestrade, who didn't have to negotiate the gallery stairs, reached Sherlock first. John joined them to one side of the courtroom door as everyone milled out for coffee or the toilets.

"Those better not have been your orders," Sherlock snapped at John by way of greeting as they made their way across the antechamber.

John glanced at Lestrade, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. "Sherlock, you saw I was all the way up in the gallery," he protested. "I'm not mind controlling your psychologist." He decided not to point out that even from the heights of the gallery, he'd seen Sherlock's gaze wander too easily and too often to the closed courtroom doors and occasionally up to the windows, as if he were seeking an escape route. "Look, do you want me to get you a cup of coffee? Or maybe- "

"No." Sherlock had brought out his phone and was already engrossed in it. "I have to call Mycroft and let him know what the jury are like, and I'm dying for a cigarette."

"I could do with one myself," Lestrade remarked innocently. "I'll come out with you."

"If you must," Sherlock muttered. He'd already fished into his pockets for his cigarettes and had an unlit one clamped resolutely between his lips. He rarely got himself into a situation where he _had_ to have a cigarette, and John knew he was already wearing no less than two patches.

"Take your patches off, both of you, before you collapse of nicotine poisoning," John called after them. But Sherlock was halfway to the front entrance by this time. Lestrade, trailing behind, glanced back at him over his shoulder for a moment.

Sighing, John wandered over to one of the stone benches in the antechamber and sat down, pulling out his own mobile and navigating to Molly's number. It was one of her days at work, and whether her phone had reception or not depended on whether she was in the lab, her workstation or the morgue.

Direct to voicemail. Morgue.

"Hi, it's me. No emergency, I'll call later or see you tonight." He hung up, and the bench he sat on shuddered as an older, heavier man sat down beside him at rather close proximity. John fiddled with his phone's address book, not bothering to look up until the stranger spoke.

"Dr. Watson?"

"Yep." John glanced up good-naturedly. The man beside him was middle aged, balding and grandfatherly-looking. This last one was helped along by the fact that he smelled strongly of menthol, something John associated with his own grandfather, a chain-smoker who had died when he was seven. He looked keenly at John with what were rapidly becoming a very familiar pair of blue eyes.

_Where have I seen him before...?_

"Harry Price." The man put his hand out and John, still trying to place him, distractedly shook it. Very warm, very firm handshake; the handshake of a used car salesman, or maybe a televangelist...

"Oh," he finally said inelegantly as the penny dropped. "From the telly. Hi."

Harry Price, self-proclaimed parapsychologist and medium, did not look particularly thrilled at being identified as "from the telly." But then, John reflected, that was his own fault for having a show on BBC Two with such a mind-numbingly arrogant title as _The Amazing Harry Price._

"I understand you're Sherlock Holmes's personal assistant," Price said, neatly folding the lengths of his grey woollen coat over his bony knees.

"That is _not _a euphemism. I can promise you that there's only so much that I personally assist him with." John curled his fingers around the phone in his lap and finally looked at the stranger properly. Definitely Harry Price. The man looked like a cadaver, if cadavers were capable of exuding almost nauseating levels of self-satisfaction. No doubt both of those things helped with the trade. "Can I help you?"

"Well, I certainly hope so. I have a case Mr. Holmes may be able to assist with."

"No." The word came out like a gunshot. "In case you haven't noticed, Sherlock's in court today 'cause his last case got two men killed and nearly killed two more, including himself. He's not taking any further cases for the time being."

"I imagine you've seen my programme," Price continued, as if he hadn't heard John's refusal.

"Yes, I've seen it." This was true; John and Molly had sometimes tuned in to _The Amazing Harry Price_ to laugh at the antics of an obviously staged programme and an obviously fake medium. "What's that got to do with Sherlock?"

"He recently published a paper on the psychological and physiological causes for people to report psychic phenomena."

"Yes. But uh, I've not read it." Sherlock had written and published a great deal over the past couple of months, having little else to do as he recovered. Not all of his writing was academically motivated. John knew he'd also perfected the art of one-handedly typing with his left hand, just as an experiment; and that after discovering the disappointing limitations of the voice recognition technology on his computer he'd been experimenting with ways to improve it. Of course, the fact that this would benefit any number of people who were _also_ unable to type by hand never occurred to him until John had pointed it out, and then he'd shoved that consideration aside as relatively unimportant.

John had given Sherlock's article, _On Infrasound and Other Scientific Causes of Paranormal Phenomena, _a solid miss. The title alone was practically a sedative.

"Pity. It was a very _interesting_ article," Price said. "Certainly your friend has a formidable intellect."

John hid a smirk behind his hand. Apparently, Price had never seen _The Princess Bride;_ or if he had, he didn't realise he'd nearly quoted it. There was one line in particular that had become so much funnier since John Watson had met Sherlock Holmes: _Ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates...? Morons!_

"He's the most intelligent man I've ever met," John said. His phone suddenly buzzed in his hand; without apologies he checked the incoming text from Greg.

_Right hand._

- _Today 10:47am_

He gave his attention to the response for a minute or two.

_ Ignore it and the smoking. Talk about Matthew's novel._

_` - Today 10:48am_

Matthew Lestrade, still only sixteen, was about to be a published author. His first crime novel, _Death Watch_, had just been accepted by Beacon Hill Publishing House and was due out in September.

"Yes, it's clear you think highly of him," Price was saying, bringing John reluctantly back to the conversation in front of him. "Anyhow, it seems that those in the upper echelons of the London Society for Psychical Research have also read Mr. Holmes's essay, and that's put me in an interesting professional position, shall we say. Now tell me, have you heard of a place called Borley Rectory?"

"Nope, can't tell you I have." John shifted, wishing he was outside with Sherlock and Greg, or at least that he was sitting on a chair with a solid back to lean against. "What, is it haunted?"

"Very. I might even say it's the most haunted house in England."

John snorted.

"Ah, see." Price pointed in vague accusation with one knobbly finger. "See, there. You know nothing about Borley Rectory, Dr. Watson. You've known about its existence for about ten seconds. And yet you insist it can't possibly be haunted. Rather too early to call that one, don't you think? And judging from his printed views, I imagine Mr. Holmes feels the same way."

"Holy God, you should have seen the way he carried on when I got my daughter baptised."

"I can imagine. So you're a man of faith, then?"

"No, not particularly." John folded his arms. "And I'm also under the impression that asking strangers about their religious beliefs is rude."

"My apologies. I was only trying to demonstrate that we all believe things that are a little irrational at times, whether that's ghosts or God."

_God, he's as smooth as glass. _No fumble. No embarrassment... and no real regret, John realised, behind the man's apologies. "Not Sherlock," he said, wondering again how the conversation outside was transpiring. "He says if it's not scientifically quantifiable, it doesn't exist."

Price's face twitched. It seemed like amusement, but for a second, John wondered if it were closer to a sort of controlled... rage? That was odd. No need to get enraged over a difference of opinion.

"What about things like love?" Price asked.

"He gave my wife and me an essay called The Neurochemistry of Love once." _For our first anniversary present. With "love" marked out in inverted commas every time he used it._

"From the sounds of things, I'm looking very much forward to meeting him. I'm sure we could have a lot of conversations where we both learn something. Anyhow, so what I'm proposing, Dr. Watson, is for Sherlock Holmes to join me in a full investigation into the rectory. The great detective and the great parapsychologist, hunting down the truth."

Was this guy seriously putting himself on the same level as Sherlock Holmes? His show was full of cheap party tricks. Even the London branch of the SPR apparently didn't think much of him, and they actually _believed_ in that sort of ghosty stuff.

"And all this for your programme," John said warily. "You want to put Sherlock on TV?"

"No, not at all. This will be a strictly scientific and fully-documented investigation for the LSPR. They take themselves and their work seriously, Dr. Watson. No television cameras, no tricks, no gimmicks."

Well, that was one thing, John supposed. "Yeah, well, as interesting as all that sounds, like I said, Sherlock's not taking any cases; not right now," he repeated stubbornly.

"There are no properly documented cases of ghosts ever causing human harm, Dr. Watson."

"I'm not surprised, 'cause I don't think there are any properly documented cases of ghosts," John muttered into his chest, then looked back up at Price. At the last minute, he decided not to point out how he was fairly sure there _were_ plenty of documented cases of dodgy fake mediums causing human harm. "The problem with all this is, one of you has to lose this one," he said instead. "And let me tell you, Mr. Price, the loser won't be Sherlock. He likes to win."

Price smiled grimly. "So do I," he said, standing up stiffly. "Do ask Mr. Holmes to call me when he gets a chance, will you?"

"No."

"Thank you, Dr. Watson." Price slapped John's shoulder affably. "I'm much obliged."


	2. Ball and Chain

_**A/N- **__While the subject matter is not treated graphically or disrespectfully, there is a __**trigger **__**warning**__ for this chapter and for the rest of this fic. To tell you what for would be to give it away (and make you think it'll be worse than it is): in short, if you have a known trigger or squidgy-topic you can't read about, please PM me and I'll tell you what to look out for. _

* * *

It was past eight in the evening, and a chill wind was shaking leaves from the overhanging plane trees onto the dark front step, before Greg Lestrade wearily let himself into his own house. Hayley was nowhere to be seen – probably Jake's place - but he found Melissa and Matthew in the brightly-lit living room. It was one of Matthew's visitation weekends, though these were not such a novelty now he was sixteen and had the permission of both Julie and the Family Court to come over to the house whenever he pleased. He was slumped in one of the armchairs in a crumpled t-shirt, jeans and bare socks, staring at the television. Melissa was on the nearby sofa, feet up, her laptop on her knees. Glancing over at the screen, he saw that she was filling in a client review, not chatting away on Facebook.

"Behold my Monday night, Greg," she said tiredly, tilting her head up so that he could give her an upside-down kiss on the forehead. "Have you eaten?"

"Yeah, I, uh, ate at Sherlock's," he said, rubbing the back of his head idly.

She raised an eyebrow. "At the flat? Great, I await the spectacular bout of food poisoning that should kick in in a couple of hours. How is he, anyway?" There was no need to ask how the day's hearing had gone, since they'd already discussed it at length over the phone once the court had been adjourned nearly three hours earlier. Although Brian Merchant had been found, the day after Sherlock and Stephen's rescue, to be covered from clavicle to pelvis in suspiciously boot-shaped bruises, Miranda Davis had never asked Lestrade to account for them when he'd taken the witness box that afternoon and given his account of the events of the night they had been inflicted.

"Oh, you know, he's okay... just the usual." Lestrade's glance to her, and then to his son, told her that discussing Sherlock would have to wait until they were alone in their bedroom. He threw himself down in the armchair next to Matthew, not realising that he'd done so in a complete mirror of Matthew's body language, and therefore not understanding why Melissa smiled for a second. Leaning over, he poked Matthew's arm.

"Hey," he said. "I'm actually home now, if you didn't notice. Anything interesting on?"

"Top Gear," Matthew said. "Does that count?"

Not for the first time, Lestrade was amazed at how much Matthew now sounded like Julie's brother, Alan. _Though he's losing the Bristol accent, _Lestrade reflected, not realising that he had himself for several years sounded like the world's only Bristolian Cockney. _Fair cop. We've been in London since he was six. _

"Depends. Has that idiot Clarkson died in a fiery onscreen wreck yet?" he wanted to know.

Matthew shrugged without taking his eyes off the screen. "Maybe, but this is a rerun."

"I'll give it half points, then." Lestrade poked him again. Sometimes Matthew needed to be physically jogged a few times before he switched his attention from one thing to the other, and sixteen years had told his father that he wasn't doing it to be annoying. "So what else has been happening?" he asked him.

"Quite a lot's been happening over at Julie's place, it seems," Melissa remarked, not bothering to look up from where she was still typing away at her laptop. "So when were you going to tell me?"

He looked at her for a few seconds, trying to work out how much she knew- _shit. _"Tell you...?"

She looked up at him for the first time, her heavy-lashed brown eyes calm and unaccusing. "Well, it's just that Spawn tells me Julie's getting remarried," she said.

"Oh, _nice one_, mate," Lestrade hissed at Matthew, rolling his eyes.

"Seriously? For God's sake, Greg, it's not _his_ fault you didn't tell me!" Melissa snapped the laptop shut and thunked it down on the sofa cushion next to her. Smoky, who had been dozing on the arm of the sofa, startled and ran for cover. "God knows when _you_ would have. Is that the sort of thing we're doing in this relationship now? What, were you just not going to mention it for six months and then say, 'Oh, by the way, Mel, not that it's any of your business or anything, but I'm going to my ex wife's wedding next Saturday'?"

"I'm _not_ going to it," Lestrade protested. "I know you have some strange idea that I piss in Julie's pockets, but – "

"Lovely."

"Did it occur to you that maybe I haven't told you about it yet because I was trying to think of a way of doing it without _this _happening?"

"So because you knew I'd be angry that you didn't tell me promptly... you didn't tell me promptly? Logic is not your strong point, is it?" Melissa glanced over at Matthew. He was still sitting stiffly in his armchair, totally ignoring the television now and looking like he was trying to decide if it would be worse for him if he pretended he wasn't there or got up to leave. "Matthew," she said calmly. "Your father and I are about to have a completely normal, natural and non-catastrophic row that you don't have to panic about or blame yourself for, so could you head on upstairs for a bit while we have it?"

Matthew was already on his feet by this time. He gave his father a worried glance over his shoulder as he left, and it was only when both of them heard his heavy tread on the ceiling above them that Melissa spoke again.

"Once we're done," she said, "you will go upstairs and you will tell him this wasn't his fault. You know what he's like. I'm surprised he doesn't consider himself responsible for the Kennedy assassination."

"Okay, that really _is _something for me and Julie to work through without your help," he said firmly. "When I want your professional opinion of my son, I'll ask you for it. Anyway, I think we both know you couldn't really care less who Julie marries; that's not what you're pissed off about. Now that Matty's upstairs thinking you're five seconds away from walking out the door, let's have it out. This is _jealousy_, that's all it is. Julie and Mark are getting married and we're not."

"I'm certainly not jealous that she's about to have the dullest man in Britain for a life partner," Melissa said sourly. "Greg, listen, we've been together for two and a half years, and – "

He rolled his eyes.

"And you don't _tell me things_," she finished. "You don't tell me things, and I'm not allowed to even have an opinion on how to raise the kids that I live with most of the time, and Julie is a sacred cow, insult intended, and now look, am I part of your family or _not?_ Because if I am, you need to tell me when your ex wife decides to get remarried, and you need to tell me properly..."

He put his face in his hands. "Mel," he said quietly. "It's really not a big deal, you know. Julie's getting remarried in September. Hayley and Matty are going. I'm not. It'll just be an ordinary Saturday for you and me."

"An ordinary Saturday. My life is filled with ordinary Saturdays. Don't you want to have a non-ordinary Saturday one of these days?"

"Wait... give me a second to think about what I want to say to that." He ran his fingers over his hair thoughtfully, taking a couple of breaths. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. This wasn't completely Mel's fault either, he reflected to himself_. _For the entire eighteen years they'd been married, Julie had thrown it at him approximately a dozen times – getting on his case like a harpy was the only way she knew how to counteract his selective deafness.

"Mel," he finally said. "I'm fifty-one years old."

"I know. I kind of threw you a fantastic fiftieth birthday party, remember?"

"And you're twenty-nine."

"Noted. You can throw me a thirtieth birthday party."

He grimaced in frustration for a few seconds, but stopped just short of demanding she be serious for ten minutes. "Yeah, I don't think you're getting this. If I..." he paused again. "If we, you know, got married, there's a whole lot of things you wouldn't get to do that you might if you married someone else."

"Someone younger, you mean," she said. "You think I wouldn't want to nurse you in your old age?"

"No," he said uncomfortably. "It's not that. You're... in a different life stage..."

She sighed heavily. "Oh, that," she said. "I don't _want_ to have children. I've _never_ wanted to have them and I'm never going to change my mind on that one. Yours are great, because they weren't kids anymore by the time I got here. Charlie Watson may be as cute as a button, but I've never wanted to hold _any_ baby for longer than about ten minutes, let alone give myself a weak pelvic floor and a load of stretch marks by having one of my own. I don't know why you don't get that, Greg."

"Well, 'cause you might change your mind."

Melissa scoffed.

"No, but you _might, _Mel. Julie didn't want any kids either; not until she was thirty. Literally woke up one day, and it was like a switch got turned on. Took us two years to have Hayley – "

"Well, what happens if the apocalypse arrives and I wake up tomorrow wanting a kid when we're _not _married?"

He looked at her in silence for a few seconds. "Then it's easier for you to move on to someone else who can give you one, without us having to go to war in the Family Law Court," he said.

"Greg, you're not even listening," she said, taking his wrist for a couple of seconds to get his attention. "You've been dragging your feet for ages on this one, all because you think I want a baby and think I don't really want to get married. And you've based that one on absolutely nothing except that _Julie_ wanted kids and didn't want to stay married to you."

He winced, wondering if Mel, for all her past boyfriends, really understood how much it had hurt, and still hurt: _I choose to reject you._ "Mel," he tried again. "Listen, I know. But it's not like there's any chance to change your mind after. You know I - "

"Yep, I know how vasectomies work, Greg." She folded her arms, then, apparently realising she looked defensive doing so, unfolded them again. "Still not bothered by it. Marry me."

He looked up at her, as alarmed as if she'd slapped him. "Was that a _proposal?"_

She paused, touching her lips with her fingertips for a second. "It wasn't meant as one in my head," she admitted slowly, "but sure, okay. It's a proposal. Gregory Peter Lestrade, aged fifty-one and who is now shooting blanks because of a vasectomy he had fifteen years ago, will you marry me?"

* * *

"You did well today, Sherlock," John remarked over his shoulder as he ran the kitchen tap and clunked some dirty dishes into the sink. What Greg had neglected to tell Melissa was that the meal they'd had had actually been cooked in Mrs. Hudson's kitchen, so the food poisoning she was worried about was probably never going to eventuate. But Mrs. Hudson's first comment as they'd trailed in the door at half-past five was that she was _not_ going to wash up for them; she'd signed out for the day, as it were, and now the faint strains of the theme from Coronation Street floating up the flat stairs were proof of it.

In the cluttered living room, Sherlock was lying stiffly on the sofa, his bare feet hanging off the end and his undamaged forearm flung lazily over his forehead. The other arm was now out of its cast and well on the mend, but he had laid it carefully over his chest.

"Stop patronising me," he muttered darkly. "I testified. I've testified before."

"Fine." The dishes clinked together as John put a clean plate on the drying rack. "You did a terrible job today, Sherlock."

"The defence are having a field day with me."

"No, they're not." John rubbed his itchy nose briefly with the back of his wrist. "They're _pretending_ to be having a field day, 'cause that's what they're supposed to do. They're not going to act like they're losing. Anyway, you answered all the questions you could."

"Therein lies the problem."

"Hmm?"

Sherlock gave a brief, breathless little grunt of pain. Hands still dripping soapy water all over the floor, John reached the doorway to the living room in time to see him sit up with difficulty. "For God's sake," he hissed to himself.

John waited, but Sherlock never unravelled it: _for God's sake. My back is supposed to be fully healed and it still hurts._

"I'm not entirely certain I was unconscious for as long as I said I was," he continued, scruffing his hair up. "It's a medical fact that if I was out for any longer than about thirty seconds, I would almost definitely have permanent brain damage. I don't. The idea that I was unconscious for large lengths of time is medically implausible, and the defence will be sure to point that out, which will bring both my testimony and my motivations into sharp question."

"Yeah, well, you still did have a blackout, Sherlock." John dried his hands on a nearby dish towel and then went to the medicine cabinet. "Whether you were neurologically unconscious at the time or not is totally beside the point. You can be wide awake and not remember anything, or not remember much. And Mycroft is going to have to take the stand tomorrow and say the exact same thing you did."

"Mycroft's starting to remember."

"Mycroft's started to _think_ he's remembering," John corrected him, still shuffling through packets of paracetamol and sticking plasters. Sherlock's medicine cabinet wasn't as extensively stocked as his own, but then, Sherlock wasn't an M.D. "For all we know, he's having invented memories, and - _Sherlock Holmes_..."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows innocently. "What?"

John came back into the room, a small white box in his hand. A foil bubble pack poked out of it like a shiny tongue. "Sherlock, by my count, you're meant to have six of these left."

"Yes."

"And I'm counting ten. Did you skip two full doses today?"

"They're not good for working," Sherlock said. Then, before John could make too many enquiries as to possible late-night experiments going on at his kitchen table, he followed up with, "or for being cross-examined on something that happened months ago."

John sighed heavily and went to fetch a glass of water. "They do a marvellous job on pain, though," he said, putting two pills in Sherlock's hand and watching him while he took them. "These aren't like paracetamol, that you take when it hurts and stop when it doesn't. You're supposed to have a steady supply in your bloodstream, which will stop you feeling so out of it when you do take them. Anyway, I'm afraid you won't be working for a while, unless you want to go on a ghost hunt in Suffolk, or some place."

"... I'm sorry, _what_ did you say?" Sherlock glanced across at the packet John was holding in his hand. "Hmm. I wasn't expecting to be high _that_ quickly."

John explained about his meeting with Price earlier that day, taking great pains to comment on how Price wasn't making friends or influencing people in _his_ corner and that the whole thing was probably going to end up a media circus.

"But Google it, if you're interested," he suggested. "I mean, of all the cases we could be taking on, it can't hurt, can it?"

He did not notice Sherlock's brief smirk. _We._

Sherlock was quickly on his phone. By the time John was finished with the kitchen and came back to sit down in his armchair, he had his eyes shut and both hands lying on his breast, like a vampire. His phone was tucked protectively under them. Glancing across, John saw that his face looked slightly pinched in the light of the nearby lamp.

"I'm not strung out," he said abruptly. "I'm thinking."

"Listen, Sherlock..." John said, fumbling a little. "Just, if you do start remembering stuff, you know you can tell me about it, right?"

"Just what is that meant to imply?" Sherlock opened one eye and looked impassively at him across the shadowy room.

John hedged. "If something happened to you, something you don't want to talk about... I mean, when Moriarty –"

"Stop talking." Sherlock shut his eyes again. "Doherty's criminal profile suggests his MO is not sexual assault, and neither Stephen nor I have shown any physical evidence or latent memories of any such thing ever happening. Next topic."

He held out his phone to John, who cleared his throat and stood up to reach over for it. "Okay," he muttered, sinking back down into his armchair. "Well, just so you know. So what am I looking at?"

"Borley Rectory. Essex, not Suffolk, though you were very close."

"Ugly place," John commented, peering at a high-definition shot of the stark red-brick mansion and then glancing across to see if Sherlock was laughing his head off at the entire premise of this new case. He wasn't. "You're seriously thinking about this?"

Sherlock seemed about to reply, but before he could do so they both heard the front door downstairs open. Puzzled, Sherlock got to his feet, just as John leapt up and went out through the kitchen door and down the stairs to the first landing.

"Greg," he said. "You're back. Did you... oh." His tone changed abruptly; Sherlock saw him beckon. "Right, come up."

Sherlock waited while John returned, trailing a much wearier and sombre Greg Lestrade behind him. Lestrade stopped in the living room door, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"Oh, go ahead, Sherlock," he muttered to him. "Deduce away."

Not realising that this was the last thing Lestrade actually wanted him to do, Sherlock let his gaze bounce over him from head to toe. "You just rejected a marriage proposal from Melissa," he said. "Your right wrist clearly shows -"

"You _what?_" John blinked stupidly. "Seriously, Greg...?"

* * *

For her entire career Molly Watson, _nee_ Hooper, had been holding onto a rather big secret, known only to her husband, Sherlock Holmes and Mike Stamford: ninety percent of her day-to-day work was paperwork. Very, very _boring_ paperwork.

Being a pathologist was both a lot harder and a lot less fun than was depicted on television. For every five minutes elbow-deep in guts in an autopsy, there were about a hundred minutes you had to spend writing out a report on that autopsy. And for every autopsy report you wrote, there were about five you had to peer review.

The one she had been quietly working on at the dining room table since coming home was... horrible. Well, frankly, the whole Fetal and Infant department was rather horrible, since pathology didn't often deal with the success cases. Ten-month-old Evie Sadler had died during open heart surgery at St James' Paediatric Hospital earlier that week. Her autopsy had been carried out at Barts, as per the wishes of her parents, for the purposes of researching the causes and finding a cure for Atrial-Septic defects. The autopsy had been carried out by Professor Ross Harding, Lab Director, in the presence of four medical students; and it was Molly's job to review his findings and sign off on the procedurals so that the baby could be given back to her parents and buried.

Nine minutes into her review, Molly had started to swallow heavily.

Twelve minutes in, she got up to turn the light on and take a few deep breaths.

Twenty minutes in, she went to the nursery and fetched Charlie, who had been sitting up in her cot babbling away to herself and slobbering all over a Rubik's Cube that Sherlock had, in his infinite wisdom, felt was an appropriate gift for an eight-month-old child. (Though, to be fair, John had already pointed out that it had done an awfully good job helping her cut her teeth.) Molly confiscated it to change Charlie's nappy and comforted her daughter's resulting heartbreak a little absently, taking her downstairs once she'd calmed down and feeding her as she continued looking over the case in front of her.

All in order, so far as she could see. No suggestion that Evie's condition was anything other than horrible misfortune. Nobody's fault. Evie had died while she was still under, and hadn't suffered. The autopsy had been standard procedure with no nasty surprises, and the paperwork seemed to be in order. Molly was about to sign off on the whole horrid thing and hopefully forget about it forever when she saw it.

Or rather, she didn't see it.

The thoracic organs, including the heart, had been removed from Evie's body for embalming prior to being thoroughly examined at a later date.

_But where is the permission slip from the parents?_

Professor Ross Harding didn't know it yet, but he was due to be read a Molly Watson rendition of the Riot Act the next morning at work. These things were hard enough to get through without people losing and misplacing important paperwork like that all over the place, and delaying the return of a baby's body to her parents was not something Molly wanted to be responsible for. She was just wondering if she should pick up the phone then and there, though it was now nearly half-past nine, when the front door clinked and she heard John's tread in the hall. A few seconds later, he came through into the kitchen.

"Hey."

Molly had by now more-or-less accepted the fact that she couldn't compete with her daughter for John's attention, and quickly handed Charlie over. The little girl snuggled coyly into his neck as he leaned over to kiss his wife.

"What's that?" he asked, gesturing to the work in front of her.

"Oh, my God, don't ask. Once I'm finished, I never, ever want to look at it again." She snapped her laptop shut and got up briskly, going over to the kettle. "How was it today?"

"Um." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly with one hand, leaving a cowlick that she decided not to point out, since it made him seem like an overgrown schoolboy. "The trial? There's no way in. uh... heck..." he glanced at Charlie... "that they'll get off on those charges, Molly. They're as guilty as sin. The whole court knows it."

"And Sherlock?"

"Would you believe I had to make him _take_ drugs today?" John shook his head. "And I'm the last person who'd be telling him to pop pills if he didn't need them. I dunno what's got into him, but I don't like it." He sat down, flinching a little as Charlie's grubby fist smacked him lightly in the chin.

"I know that he was nervous about giving evidence," Molly said. "Especially because he can't really remember some of what happened. He probably wanted a clear head for it."

"Which didn't really work," John said gloomily. "I mean, no witness-stand meltdowns or anything horrible, but he wasn't able to bring his best game. I didn't think it was pain that was throwing him off, though." His face twitched in guilt for a moment. "Anyway," he said in different tones, "it's done now. Oh, and he got offered a case – nothing dangerous. Just a publicity stunt, really. Ghost hunting."

Molly paused, tea bag suspended halfway over John's cup, and raised one eyebrow. "Ghost hunting? You mean, as in, grown-ups actually hunting for actual ghosts?"

"Harry Price asked Sherlock to join him on an investigation into some supposedly-haunted mansion – er, rectory." John was idly trying to remember what the difference was between a rector, a vicar and a parson. Caroline Edalji had explained it during her son's case a year before, but he hadn't really been paying attention...

"Harry Price?" Molly had always had a sort of childlike adoration of anyone she considered a "celebrity", and although she knew as well as John did that Price was a fraud, her eyes had just lit up like a birthday cake. "Like on that show?" she clarified. "_That_ Harry Price?"

John nodded. "Had the nerve to come up to me at the trial today."

"Maybe it'll do Sherlock good to be on a case again, even if it isn't a very important one." Molly, bringing John's tea over to him and twisting the cup handle away from Charlie's grasping fingers, gave him a significant glance, so much as if to say that it wasn't just _Sherlock_ who could do with it. "It's been months since... all that happened. He must be bored."

"He is. But I didn't really think he'd be up for it right now – not great timing, not with the trial and everything. I think, now that we have Greg -" He stopped himself just in time, but Molly had heard too much. She frowned.

"You have Greg _what?"_

Molly was later to find out that the full disclosure would have been: _a temporary resident of my old bedroom at 221b, as it happens. _"Have you heard from Melissa today, by any chance?" he asked her instead.

She shook her head. "What? Is it something bad?"

He made a face. "Maybe you should give her a call, let her tell you herself. I won't lie... I sort of want to hear the other side of the story now."


	3. In Case

_**A/N-** Due to my merging chapters, if you've already reviewed what used to be the old chapter 3 (now part of chapter 2) you can't review this one except as a signed-out guest. I would be completely thrilled if you could, though. I take concrit seriously and welcome all kinds of reviews. xx_

* * *

"He better not have told Sherlock and John that I kicked him out of his own house," Melissa was saying loudly down the line. "I can promise you, once he basically told me that proposals are for boys, he flounced off of his own accord."

Molly, standing in the third-floor south tea room juggling hot tea in one hand and her phone in the other, frowned and clucked her tongue sympathetically. It had been first too late the night before to call up Melissa and ask what was going on between her and Greg, and then too early in the morning. It was nearly eight now and she was about to sign on for the day, but had snuck in a quick call first. It was proving difficult to navigate a conversation with Melissa about her relationship woes when she was, all said and done, at least partially sympathetic to Greg as well. She also knew she was not the most tactful person on earth, and had spent the last three minutes and counting trying to find a real excuse to get off the line.

Fortunately, just then she had glanced out of the open door to see Ross Harding slip through the foyer on the way to his office, briefcase in one hand, coffee in the other. She reached over and picked up the heavy paper file on Evie Sadler, along with the jump-drive containing all of the electronic data of the case.

"Oh, I don't think he would have said something like that," she consoled, a little automatically. "John didn't say he was cross or anything when he got to Sherlock's. Um, Mel, I really do have to go."

"So do I. So many psychopaths to assess today, so little time." Melissa sighed heavily.

"I'll call you on my coffee break, if you want?"

"Nah, enjoy that break. Call me tonight, if you want."

"Okay."

Molly took a breath as she hung up the line and looked reluctantly at Evie's file. Girding all of her bravery, she picked up her tea and went over to Harding's office, knocking on the door awkwardly with the back of her hand. Harding looked up, taking a sip of coffee with one hand and going through a pile of papers on his desk with the other.

"Molly," he said after a hasty swallow that clearly scalded his throat a little. "How can I help?"

"I've got your autopsy report from peer review, Professor." Molly put it on the desk in front of him. "Evie Sadler."

The staff of Barts were generally on a first name basis with one another; Molly, Mike, Sharon, Sherlock. Ross Harding was never _Ross_, or even _Dr_. _Harding_. He was _Professor_, almost as if he were a Hogwarts teacher who'd somehow been stranded in Central London without his wand.

"Oh," he said pleasantly, reaching across the desk for it. "Thanks - "

"I didn't sign off on it."

Harding stopped short, his fingertips resting on the file, and looked up at her. Molly saw for a second that he wasn't just surprised... he was angry, genuinely angry.

"Why not?" he asked briskly.

"Because there's no signed slip from her parents giving permission for harvesting her organs." Molly planted her heels into the floor. It was something John had suggested to her for when she felt intimidated; afterwards, she had noticed just how often John did it, too.

"Damn." Harding sighed heavily, then opened the file and idly flicked through it. Molly felt a hot flash of her own anger – this was a _baby's autopsy file,_ not a copy of _Hello_ magazine from the break room!

"Professor...?" she prompted.

Harding smiled wryly. "Damn," he repeated, as if he'd left his car headlights on, not discovered a serious breach of conduct that affected the entire department. "Well, it probably got lost somewhere; that does happen. I'm confident that we wouldn't have harvested those organs and conducted research on them without permission – "

"Wait, you've already _used_ those samples?" Molly's mouth dropped open. "You used them? When you didn't have any permission?"

"I'm afraid so." Harding leaned back in his leather desk chair and looked quite unrepentant. "Even if we didn't, putting them back if the parents say no is a little absurd, isn't it? They aren't going to check they've been returned, and it's all for the good of kids like Evie who could be cured in the future."

"But you didn't have permission!"

"Well, we'll get it in retrospect. Do me a favour and contact the Sadlers today, Molly, and have a new form sent out. They need to hear this from us, not from the admin staff."

Molly was silent for a few seconds. She was twisting her wedding ring; most of her friends and family knew this as a sign she was truly angry. Was Professor Harding _serious?_ He had conducted that bloody autopsy. _He_ had taken the organs from a dead baby without permission, allowed them to be dissected and injected and sliced and diced and pickled, and now he was cross at _her_ for not signing off on it anyway? And he was making _her_ call the bereaved parents to cover his arse?

Professor Harding was, among other things, her direct professional superior.

"Yes, Professor." She stood up. "I'll do that as soon as possible."

* * *

"Absolutely no doubt about it." John took off his jacket and threw it over the back of his armchair, then loosened his tie. "They'll be out for a verdict tomorrow. And it'll be 'guilty as sin', and I hope the judge decides to throw away the key."

It was evening, and John and Lestrade had come back to 221B with Sherlock after a second day at the Old Bailey. Mycroft had bore witness that morning. Not for the first time, he had reminded Lestrade of some dauntless military hero of old, letting cannonballs and musketfire whistle past his very ears as if they were nothing more alarming than mayflies buzzing on a calm spring evening. Nelson at Trafalgar. Wellington at Waterloo. Totally unperturbed by Miranda Davis's attempts to bully him into a state of blithering nerves:

_Did you ever speak to Paul Doherty himself on the phone, Mr. Holmes?_

_ – No. _

_Did you ever speak to Brian Merchant directly on the phone, Mr. Holmes?_

_ – No. _

_Mr. Holmes, did Doherty or Merchant ever explicitly identify themselves as the ones behind the kidnapping of Stephen Hassell and Sherlock Holmes? Did they ever identify themselves to you physically, or by name? _

_– No. _

Davis had looked pleased when her cross-examination was over but Lestrade, who'd been sitting beside a twitchy Sherlock in the gallery and keeping an eye both on him and on the proceedings, knew this for the bluff it was. Mycroft, with his calm matter-of-factness, his obvious intelligence and class, was an extremely credible witness. His admissions of not remembering or having proof of the kidnapping weren't harming the case for the prosecution much. There were his fingers, for a start; four months on, they still bore faint white lines that read: _When We Want You We Will Take You._

Dr. John Watson was also a credible witness that afternoon, due in part to the inherent middle-class respectibility of his profession and partly because he came across as such a harmless, truthful, good-natured bloke. He bore up Sherlock's account of the night Stephen had been kidnapped in almost every detail, except that he was asked, as an M.D, to give his opinion on Mycroft's mental state that night.

"He remembered who'd won the last World Cup," John had said. "His birthday, his brother's, mine. Could spell his name backwards. He was very lucid when I got there, but he also had a low body temperature and was suffering from emotional shock."

Davis had followed a line of enquiry from Mycroft's alcohol intake that evening, to enquiring if John was aware of either Holmes brother having a substance abuse problem. Fortunately, Keith Allan had practically leapt over his desk to sputter his objection, and Justice Pinkerton had roared at Davis to desist in her enquiries in that line before the painfully-honest doctor had been able to open his mouth.

The "drugs stash" at 221B just then would have disappointed Miranda Davis. No sooner had John put down his jacket on the chair and his wallet and keys on the table, he went straight for the medicine cupboard again, opening the white packet of pills and very obviously counting them.

"He took his dose this morning," Lestrade said quietly, coming into the kitchen under the pretense of making coffee. "Watched him do it."

"Don't start that, now, or he'll enjoy having you around and never let you leave. Speaking of which, have you talked to Mel...?"

"Texted – she was at work. Oh, look, it was fine, honestly. Nobody texted any threats or four-letter words. Said she was taking Matty to the British Museum."

"You're not actually going to break up with her after all this, are you?"

Lestrade shrugged, as if to say, _well, we're not getting married._

John frowned briefly and took the medicine out to where Sherlock had sank down into the sofa again, looking rather sulkily at the ceiling. He turned his head slightly, then sat up – without, John noted, the pronounced wince of yesterday. "No, not yet," he said. "I'll take those later."

John dropped his shoulders in exasperation."Why not now?" he demanded.

"Because I've got Harry Price coming around in an hour, and I think it's only good manners to not be high when he arrives."

"You're seriously thinking of taking this case?" John asked for the sixth time in two days, sitting down. Sherlock shrugged.

"I don't play games I can't win, but I don't enjoy games I can't lose," he said. "Price can't possibly win by science, so to "prove" a haunting, he needs to be a talented conjurer and he needs to be clever. I want Price to show me what he can do before I put his name next to mine professionally." He rubbed his palms together, then clapped them. "So," he said, almost chipper at the prospect of some mental exercise. "You two fancy a cold-reading from a famous fraud?"

* * *

The curtains to the kitchen and living room of 221B were drawn close, and the only light came from the standing lamp in the corner near the sofa. Harry Price was sitting in a chair at the table opposite Sherlock Holmes, his withered hands laid over the younger man's smoother, whiter ones. Both John, sitting in his armchair, and Lestrade, on the sofa, could see that while Sherlock's eyes may have been shut, he was clearly mentally very busy. Once or twice, John almost expected him to start giggling.

"Oh, dear," Price was mumbling. His face was contorted into numerous deep trenches and hills, like an old battlefield, and his eyelids flickered in rather theatrical distress.

John glanced at Lestrade across the dim room, but had been instructed to shut up and sit still while Price was "reading."

"Oh dear, yes, she's telling me now," Price bleated. "Something to do with her abdomen... cancer, she tells me. She suffered terribly, oh _dear, _the poor woman!"

"Fraud." Sherlock suddenly lifted his head and withdrew his hands from Price's.

The older man opened his eyes too, blinking in astonishment. "Hey?" he asked, his accent suddenly plummeting from the heightened RP tones he used on his programme and had been using since John had met him the day before.

"I said _fraud." _Sherlock stood up swiftly, buttoning his jacket. "Mr. Price, you're to be commended for your hubris, if nothing else. You took a great risk trying to present blatant cold-reading as a legitimate paranormal phenomenon to someone who employs _the same methods_ more honestly. It's not a gift. It's a _science_. I'll even accept that it's a magic trick, but there is nothing remotely supernatural about it."

"I-"

"Oh, come on. I was watching carefully the conclusions you made when you supposedly contacted the dear-departed maternal units of John and Greg."

Sherlock didn't see Lestrade blink in surprise and would not have understood why he'd done so – he'd never before heard Sherlock refer to him by his first name. Price, meanwhile, looked distinctly like a man who'd been caught with his trousers down. "I'm sorry?" he garbled.

"Oh, would you like me to spell out how you actually came to your conclusions? I'm sure these two would appreciate it. Firstly, your so-called contact of John's mother. John's mother was an intensely Catholic woman who regarded newspaper horoscopes as the work of Satan. Let's assume for argument's sake that she's wandering around on the spiritual plane between heaven and earth, as opposed to being in heaven or, much more likely, being mentally nowhere and physically in the ground somewhere out at Witham."

John's mother had been dead for twenty-five years, so it was a wound that had largely healed. Still, he sighed and made a mental note to strongly remind Sherlock about sensitivity once he was finished reaming Harry Price.

"Why on earth would someone who was repulsed by spiritualism in life have an afterlife chat with a medium? Unless she was trying to discredit you." Sherlock deigned to look both thoughtful and sarcastic at the same time. "After all, she told you a large amount of wrong information, such as how many children she gave birth to. Odd thing for a woman to get wrong, don't you think? John is one of two, not three, though it was a nice guess at the national average for his generation. He's been married for less than two years, not upwards of ten, as you confidently called it. He has one child, not two."

John frowned. He'd already realised that his comment about Charlie's recent baptism had given away that he was a parent, but didn't recall Price even mentioning _two_ children.

"So, how did you arrive at all that bunk? Inspired guesswork and false conclusions made from incomplete observations, mainly. John married relatively late in life, so statistically, a married man his age would either be married for some years or be on a second or subsequent marriage. You guessed at a longer marriage, probably because he doesn't seem the type to trade a woman in for a younger model. But if you'd bothered to look _carefully_ at John's wedding ring, you would have seen that it's extremely glossy and unscratched. I've never met a man who bothers with polishing his wedding ring, no matter how happy his marriage is. That, and the style of ring, _should_ have led you to the conclusion that it's only a couple of years old.

"John's reference yesterday to Charlotte's baptism clued you into the fact that John has a daughter who, given his reference to "having her baptised" instead of letting _her_ make that decision, would be a baby or, at most, a toddler. Two children was an educated guess; roughly the national average and likely in a family-oriented man John's age if he'd been married for more than ten years. And as if all those inspired inferences weren't enough, there's also a clear outline of a spare dummy in John's left jeans pocket and he smells strongly of talcum powder, which would otherwise be quite the anomaly if he wasn't regularly caring for an infant.

"Now onto Lestrade, who occasionally acts like the detective he is. He had the wits to tell you one big lie that, unfortunately for you, you never challenged before you started his reading. I'm frankly astounded at the amount of information you were able to get out of Lestrade's mother from the Great Beyond, considering the woman is still very much alive and comfortably spending her twilight years at the home of her daughter over in Sidcup.

"Now with me, it was less guesswork and more actual reading, wasn't it? That's why you wanted hold of my hands. You were analysing tiny and usually involuntary movements in them that would indicate your blatant guesses were on the right track, which is how I was able to lead you onto false information.

"For the record, my mother's name was Philippa, not Violet. She was half-English and half-French, not Irish. She died when I was sixteen, so your comment on my being a "child" at the time was wide of the mark. I have only one brother, Mycroft Linwood Holmes, and have never heard of anyone, in my family or out of it, named Sherrinford. My mother died of a stroke, quickly, on the bitumen of the carpark servicing my brother's office at Whitehall, so your vague statistical likelihood of cancer somewhere in her abdominal cavity is laughable. Now, have I missed anything, Mr. Price?"

For a few seconds nobody spoke; John broke the silence by clearing his throat, but didn't speak. Finally, Price stood up.

"I guess that's your answer on the offer, then, Mr. Holmes?" he said in quiet defeat.

"Quite, and now you may leave." Sherlock waved his hand at him lazily. "I've had enough experience being falsely labelled a fraud to want anything to do with a _real_ fraud."

Price nodded and took a step toward the door; he looked so chastened that John could practically see the crumpled, Jimmy-Stewart style hat in his hand. But at the last minute Price turned, as though a new thought had just occurred to him.

"Mr. Holmes," he said, "what about your sister?"

Sherlock paused for half a second. Neither John nor Lestrade noticed it but Price, whose skills may have been fraudulent in one way but genuine in another, did. He was looking at Sherlock in calm defiance, like a man who had just put another's king in check and was waiting for him to notice.

"Sorry, my what?"

"Your younger sister." Price's keen eyes followed the movements of Sherlock's twitchy hands. "The one who speaks German with an American accent."

Sherlock's hand was still poised in mid-air from where he'd reached out to the coffee table to pick up the paper in contempt. The two men stared each other down.

"I'll take the case," Sherlock said.

* * *

_**A/N-** For details on Price's statement, see chapter 15 of The Somerton Man. _


	4. Want of Something

Molly put down the pipette she'd been holding and looked up blankly at the ringing landline on the lab wall, wondering when the _last_ time she'd heard it ring was – most of the staff used their mobiles, when they couldn't just walk across the corridor and speak to one another in person. She awkwardly yanked off her latex gloves and crossed the lab to the handset. "Hello?"

"Oh, is that Dr. Hooper?"

Molly had, over the past three years, managed to forge a complicated set of personal and professional names for herself. Friends and family called her "Molly". Her electricity bill and mortgage statements were made out to Dr. John and Mrs. Mary Watson, and were paid out of a debit account in the name of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Watson. In the phone book, she and John were listed as Dr. John H. and Dr. Molly Watson. But professionally, she had never officially changed her name. She'd earned her qualifications as Molly Hooper, and those qualifications still belonged to Molly Hooper. Since most of her colleagues called her by her first name, this issue rarely came up. Only Michelle at reception, who worked three mornings a week, called her Dr. Hooper.

"Michelle," she said pleasantly. Michelle's last name was Wojciechowski, and Molly had no idea in the world how to pronounce it, but she always felt guilty for not returning _Dr. Hooper_ with _Ms. Wojciechowski_. "How can I help?"

"There's a Jessica Sadler here to see you, Dr. Hooper. Best come as soon as you can. She's a little distraught..."

Molly's heart sank. She would almost have preferred Michelle to tell her there was a woman at reception with a loaded gun in her hand than one who was distraught...

"I'll be right there. Hold on."

* * *

_Oh, my God. She's only a baby herself!_

Molly, later re-checking her case, was to learn that Jessica Sadler was twenty-two, but she looked no older than seventeen. She was small and fragile; a slighter woman than even Molly herself, and the hands that wrung a sodden tissue between them looked almost brittle. They aged her well beyond seventeen, or even twenty-two. She had a halo of fine blonde hair around her blotched, tearstained face. And, Molly noted, she was there on her own, and there was no tell-tale ring on the third finger of her left hand.

"Ms. Sadler..."

"Please," she sobbed. "Just give me my little girl back..."

Molly glanced in alarm at Michelle, who was hunched behind the reception desk and looked as if she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.

"Oh, Ms. Sadler," she gaped, putting one arm around her impulsively. "Oh, come on, come with me now..."

Jessica Sadler had started to sob violently, but she put up no resistance as Molly ushered her across the foyer and into her little office. She sat her down in the nearest chair and hurried over to the water cooler to fill one of the styrofoam cups, putting it in her shaking hands as if a cup of cold water could possibly compensate for the death of her child.

"I'm sorry," Jessica was saying over and over. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

"No, it's okay." Molly looked at her in agony of helpless pity. "It's okay. Do you want me to get you a cup of tea or something?"

Jessica shook her head, giving a great shuddering sigh.

"I'm Dr. Hooper," Molly ventured at last, realising this was possibly as calm as Jessica Sadler was ever going to get under the circumstances. "But please call me Molly. I'm one of the pathologists on duty here."

"I'm Jess," she got out. "You... you called home with a message for me... Mum took it..."

"Yes." Molly had just remembered that in the chaos of the day before, she'd forgotten to follow up the message and hadn't heard back about it until now.

"Please, I just want my baby back. We wanted to have the funeral on Tuesday and... and I just want..."

Molly nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, of course you do. You don't have to sign anything you don't want to, Jess. I can authorise Evie's release this afternoon for you."

_But those organs have already been taken..._

"Evie?" Jessica repeated, and Molly flinched – stupid to use the little one's name so casually like that. "Were you the one who... who..."

Molly shook her head. "But I looked at the case," she said. "Atrial sepsis. I'm so sorry. There wasn't anything you could have done any differently, Jess, this was nobody's fault. I'm just going to get those papers together and we'll organise this right now, okay?"

_What she doesn't know can't hurt her, _Molly pleaded with herself. Jess just wanted Evie back so that she could bury her and start to heal. She'd never know those organs were missing. And telling her that they were missing – that they had in fact been dissected and then discarded as medical waste in the incinerator – that wouldn't help. It would only hurt.

But the lie made her feel sick.

As she crossed the foyer again, face burning, Molly heard her phone bleating from her pocket. She pulled it out mid-stride; text from John.

_GUILTY Doherty got life Merchant 25 years without parole_

* * *

The successful end to a case had, in the past, been cause for some kind of celebration at 221B Baker Street. But as John handed him a cup of coffee with his pills, Sherlock reflected that these little celebrations were becoming almost extinct.

Perhaps the general mood of cases he'd solved in the past year had been a little different to the romps of the past; maybe he just felt differently about them. George Edalji's conviction and sentencing of eighteen months for incest had been no cause for champagne, even if Sarah Edalji had been paroled and maintained conditional custody of her child. Renee and Daniel Jestyn, doing eight years and six months respectively for their own crimes... no cause for delight there, either. There was a kid involved who was now in the care of his grandmother. And now the knowledge that Paul Doherty would die behind bars had only brought relief, not jubilation.

"Thank you," he said into the coffee cup. He was staring off into space, but was vaguely aware of John hovering nearby. "Sit down," he muttered. "You're being very annoying."

John crossed the room and dropped into his armchair, sitting in silence for a few seconds. "So," he finally said. "Your sister."

Sherlock looked up vaguely. "Hmm?"

"Oh, come on, Sherlock. I'm not stupid. You were ready to write Price off as the fraud he is until he mentioned your younger sister, who speaks German with an American accent. And then you took on the case, just like that. You wouldn't have given him the time of day if he'd been wrong about it. Why didn't you tell me you had a sister?"

"Half-sister. And I didn't know," Sherlock said reluctantly, trying to hide his expression in his cup. "Not until last summer. Seems after he abandoned his actual family, my father got himself involved with some French tart who was evidently intent on improving her social standing. Married her; they reproduced, as people tend to. Her name is Christabel Mohler. I've never met her, and I don't intend to."

"Right." John nodded, taking this in. "And you didn't tell me this last summer because...?"

"You were a little busy last summer," Sherlock reminded him snippily. "Anyhow, you never asked."

"Should I be randomly asking you every now and again if you have any family members I've not heard about?"

Sherlock raised one eyebrow, so much as if to point out that he'd had no idea John's father had even existed until the day he'd died. "Have you?" he asked.

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Great." Sherlock sipped his coffee again. "I'm glad we've got that out of the way."

There was a companionable silence for a few minutes before John fidgeted again. "So how did he know?" he persisted.

Sherlock scoffed. "Oh, for God's sake, don't even suggest that my mother somehow told him from beyond the grave. Too many impossible scenarios to navigate there: that life after death exists, and exists in such a way that the dead are able and willing to converse with Harry Price; that my mother would have found out about Christabel and that she would be willing to discuss her to a stranger. Absurd. He found out from somewhere, that's all. Research. And the question becomes, John, why did Price go to such extraordinary lengths to find out about my family history?"

John looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Yeah, that is... a bit strange," he finally admitted. "But you said yourself he's a con-man. He probably just wanted to psych you out a bit. Maybe he talked to someone about you."

"The only other person who knew that information is Mycroft," Sherlock said. "And while he had every reason in the world to give my personal information to Moriarty, he's got none to give them to Harry Price, especially without saying something about it."

"You don't think Price is dangerous, do you?"

"No." Sherlock leaned back in his chair. "The most he's aiming for is to humiliate me by putting on a show of the rectory being haunted and proving me and my methods wrong. And I'm afraid I'm not going to let that happen. I've already sent down building inspectors this afternoon to have a look at the building itself."

"Just to see if they aren't leaking hallucinogens from pipes in the walls?"

"Precisely. Or using less sophisticated forms of trickery. There's a range of smoke-and-mirrors methods he could try out, depending on the circumstances. Some are little more elaborate than a well-placed mirror. He's no doubt read your blog, so he'd know about the Baskerville incident. I sincerely doubt he'd be stupid enough to use the same method unless he had nothing else up his sleeve."

"But you're anticipating some sort of trick."

"Of course. I had a very profitable phone conversation this morning with a Mrs Smith, wife of one of the previous rectors. She said she never knew the place to be haunted in the entire ten years that she lived there, and in her opinion it's haunted by no more than 'rats and local superstition.' Her words."

"Rats. Just lovely," John said. "Looking forward to that. So who gave out the idea the rectory was haunted in the first place?"

"Mrs Smith mentioned that the first rector's children had their own legends, but I think we can write that off as childish imagination. Any building big enough and old enough will collect a few ghost stories. No, this all comes from the current rector, a Lionel Foyster. Or more correctly, from his wife, Marianne. According to Price, she's been assailed by spirits ever since she walked in the door. I think when we get there we'll find she's being _assailed_ by boredom, and possibly assailed by a more attractive man than her husband. Happy marriage, though, by all accounts. Two young children. We'll meet with them tomorrow, as soon as possible."

"Good place to start." John looked around. "Where'd Greg get to?"

"Home," Sherlock said briefly. He'd picked up his phone and was navigating the touch-screen; it threw a pale green light on his angular face. "He needed to pack a suitcase for tomorrow. I suppose you'll want to do the same."

John blinked. "So he's coming with us?"

"Of course," Sherlock said, as if the alternative had never even entered his head. "I hardly want to leave him here at the flat on his own; God knows what he'd get up to."

"Yeah, well." John had a few ideas of _exactly_ what Greg Lestrade would get up to if he was left to his own devices at 221B Baker Street. "I think he needs to concentrate on sorting things out with Melissa right now, Sherlock."

Sherlock sighed. "He's debating whether to marry Melissa or break up with her permanently," he pointed out. "I don't think moping about here is going to help him with that decision, so he may as well be doing something useful for the case rather than getting on her nerves – or letting her get on his."

* * *

"I should only be gone until Sunday morning," Lestrade told Melissa over one shoulder, folding a shirt clumsily and putting it into the open suitcase on the bed. "If we need to be there any longer, I'll call and let you know."

Melissa, standing in the doorway with her thin hands hugging her arms, nodded dully. "Okay. And after that, are you coming home?" she asked him.

He glanced at her.

"No, I mean it, Greg. I'll sleep on the sofa if you're still pissed off at me, but it's not right that you're not even sleeping at your own house – "

"Hey." He put down the pair of socks he was holding and went over to her, touching her shoulder until she looked up at him. "I'm not pissed off at you, Mel. This is just..." He paused, struggling wordlessly for a few seconds. "Yeah," he finally said. "This is just a lot for me to take in right now. And look, I just think maybe it might be easier to take in when we're not in each other's way. That's all."

She glanced down and nodded. "Okay. But I miss you."

"I miss you, too," he admitted glumly. "You should try flatsharing with Sherlock. I'm surprised he didn't send John completely out of his mind."

Melissa smiled without any real amusement, and Lestrade turned back to the suitcase he was packing, wondering if he was going to run out of clean underwear before the trip was over. No running water. No laundry facilities. Electricity cut off... and it was still April, and not a particularly warm one. This was going to be half a degree away from camping, and after a disastrously rainy camping trip in The Cotswolds with Julie and the kids eleven years before, he'd sworn off that forever. Melissa was still in the doorway, watching him.

"Greg – "

"No," he said firmly, turning back to her more abruptly than he'd meant to. "No, don't you dare back down on this one, Mel. You've wanted to get married for nearly two years, so don't tell me now that it's okay and you take it back and we can go on like we have done, just 'cause you don't want to raise hell. You're not like that. Don't be like that. _Want_ something."

"You know full well that I've never had a problem with wanting things."

"Yeah." He ran his hand through his hair. _I just need to work out if I want the same thing._

* * *

"You'll keep the windows shut _and locked _unless you're actually in the room?"

"Yes, John."

John was just then hastily packing a suitcase of his own, with a lot less care and deliberation than Greg. Molly was sitting on the bed beside, watching the process. Charlie was on her knee, chewing on one chubby fist and blowing raspberries.

Molly had meant her agreement and had every intention of following it, but John was watching her earnestly. "I need you to promise me, Molly," he said without smiling.

"I promise." She looked back at him calmly. "You know I keep my promises."

"Yes, you certainly do." John paused, apparently thinking of a new concern, then exhaled and shut the suitcase with a snap. "Okay," he said briskly. "Is the gun loaded?"

"Yes, but no," she responded immediately, successfully repeating John's number one rule in gun safety: _always regard a gun as loaded, even if you're one hundred percent sure it isn't._ John's compromise on the safekeeping of the pistol was a lock on the drawer it was kept in, but the key was on a ribbon hanging from the drawer handle. Charlie would, he'd argued, need to be a prodigy to be able to unlock that drawer when she was still only a day off being nine months old; and even then, while Molly had spent the last three months learning how to prepare the pistol quickly, Charlie had no hope of accidentally loading it.

"Leave the phone handset in Charlie's room," John told her. "And if... anything really sudden happens, don't waste time loading the gun. Just get yourself in there with her, bolt the door, and call 999."

"_Okay_, John." Molly stopped herself from arcing up in irritation at his bossy tones. It may have driven her, Sherlock and everyone else absolutely crazy, but anyone who knew John well also knew that he bossed because he cared. "It'll be fine," she said instead. "Really."

John scrubbed his hand over his face wearily and then dropped down to sit beside her on the mattress. "I know," he said. "Sorry. Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my father."

"No, you're not."

"I really am." He took a deep breath. "It's just, you know, the first time I've been away since... all that happened."

"Yes." Molly winced as Charlie grabbed a lock of her loose hair and pulled at it. She took her daughter's fist and gently eased it open. "But Doherty's in a cell. We'll be safe."

John leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Okay. It's just, you look... I dunno, peaky. Worried. And when you look worried, you know I start..."

"I'm fine. It's just..." She stopped herself abruptly. No. No, the last thing John wanted to hear about when he was already feeling terrible about leaving was the Evie Sadler drama. He couldn't change it and would only worry about it. "Work stuff," she said vaguely. "It'll sort itself out."

"You don't want to talk about it, then?"

"No, no. I want it to just disappear."

"Okay. As always, I've got a phone and I do answer it," he reminded her. "God, the timing of this just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?"

She smiled. "Better now than later."

He paused, thinking this over. "Yes," he agreed. "Fair enough. But listen, if something happens, or you just don't want to sit here with Charlie on your own, you call me, okay? I'd take the pair of you along with me, but you know what Sherlock's like. Anyway, we're staying at the rectory itself. It's been almost cleaned out of furniture, and there's no electricity, and the water is pumped. The place will be freezing cold, and not a lot of fun for changing nappies."

"Pumped water?" Molly screwed up her nose at the idea.

"Something to do with the original design of the house. Or the ground it was built on not being suitable for mains piping. Or something. Sherlock says it's actually a pretty new building as they go – went up in the 1860s. The rector at the time and his wife raised fourteen kids in it."

Molly's mouth dropped open. "Fourteen kids?" she repeated. "With no electricity or running water?"

John nodded. "No wonder there've been legends of ghosts and ghouls since the day it was built," he said. "Those kids probably invented them out of sheer boredom - and some water-borne bacteria that brought on collective hallucinations."

"Stop pretending you're not excited about this," she scolded playfully. "You're hoping something does happen, aren't you?"

He smiled reluctantly. "Yeah, of course. I don't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't mean I don't sort of want to see one."

"What if you do see one?"

"Oh come on, Molly... wow, you're serious?"

She shrugged, still smiling. "All because I've never seen Antarctica, doesn't mean it doesn't exist," she said brightly.

"Well, if I do see a ghost, it'll be a fake invented by Harry Price," he said. "And God help him if Sherlock catches him at it."


	5. Down The Rabbit Hole

The village of Borley could barely even be called a village; when Sherlock, John and Lestrade arrived there shortly after ten in the morning they found it consisted of barely a dozen houses along the main road, deep-rutted and soaked with recent rain. The only two places of any note seemed to be the church – a stark, squared medieval structure nestled among neat lines of gravestones - and a red-bricked, high-gabled mansion that seemed to glower through the trees on the other side of the road. But there was a cheerful-looking, fiftyish man waiting for them at the gatehouse; very little could be derived at a glance, except that he had a receding hairline, stiff stance and kindly grey eyes.

"Good morning," he said, coming forward as they got out of the car.

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock introduced himself. The sound of the car door echoed as he shut it; the only other sounds around them were the chirrup of sparrows and the soft purr of the spring breeze in the oak trees above. The older man offered his hand, which Sherlock accepted.

"I'm very pleased to meet you," he said, smiling.

"My colleagues, Dr. John Watson and Detective Inspector Lestrade." Sherlock spoke briskly, and without looking at either of his "colleagues", habitually dropping off Lestrade's first name from his introduction. Greg muttered it as he leaned over to shake the stranger's hand.

"I'm Reverend Lionel Foyster," the other said heartily. "Do call me Lionel – nobody in these parts does that "reverend" stuff. I'm sorry that my wife isn't here to greet you. She's in London for the day, but she'll probably be home this evening. Come, I suppose you want to have a look at the place. Your inspectors were here last night and this morning, and left this for you." He handed Sherlock a piece of paper, and he slowed down to read it as John and Lestrade overtook him along the path toward the circular drive at the front of the rectory.

"All in order, then?" Lestrade asked him, nudging him to keep up.

"Just as I thought," he muttered, folding the paper and putting it in his pocket, then double-stepping to catch the others up. "Rats and local superstition."

"So no dodgy gases being leaked into the rectory to make us freak out, then."

"Apparently not."

"Shame." Lestrade grinned shamefacedly, then turned his attention to the rector. "How long have you lived here for, Reverend – uh, Lionel?" he asked.

"Oh, best part of five years," Lionel said. "We're across the road at Borley Manor for the time being, so I'm afraid we've not left the rectory in comfortable condition for you to have a poke around in it."

"And you were in Canada before that, Lionel, were you not?" Sherlock remarked. "You suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and returned to England for your health."

Lionel paused. "Yes," he said, still smiling. "How did you know, Mr. Holmes?"

"Your accent is English, but your vowel sounds are confused, so you must have been among Canadian accents for quite some time. Also, I Googled you."

Lionel laughed heartily. "I suppose you Googled the whole silly situation here," he said.

"Silly?"

"Oh, psychologically this is very interesting, Mr. Holmes. But in terms of paranormal phenomena, well, I suspect there's nothing in it. Still, best let Harry Price have his day in the sun. He'll be here this evening, I think. In the meantime, come in and have a look around."

~~oo~~oo~~oo~~

_"Ow!" _

Lestrade winced and put his hand up to his forehead, but the projectile that had hit him firmly between the eyebrows had by that time rolled onto the floor. Sherlock was the first to locate it and pick it up.

"What the hell was that?" Lestrade demanded.

"Sugar." Sherlock was examining it carefully in the palm of his hand. "A lump of sugar. Or what's left of one, anyway. And it's still warm."

"Is that important?"

"Yes. It's an odd ghost, with hands that can warm a lump of sugar. Nice aim, too." Sherlock looked up. "Thrown from over there..."

They were still more or less in the doorway, facing the foot of a winding staircase. To the left was another doorway; Sherlock strode over it, poking his head through and looking down the passage to the servant's quarters.

"See any ghosts?" Lestrade was still rubbing his forehead.

"Nothing." Sherlock sounded miffed.

"The goblins around here do seem to single out some people, for whatever reason. But really, you're lucky, Inspector Lestrade." Lionel smiled apologetically at him. "When Marianne came in for supper once last month, a coin hit her right in the eye."

"Did you see this happen?" Sherlock demanded, suddenly attentive. "I mean, did you see exactly where the coin came from, or who threw it?"

Lionel shook his head. "Thrown from over where you are somewhere, I imagine," he said, gesturing to the doorway behind Sherlock. "And we were the only two in here at the time. Definitely hit her, though. She still has the mark, poor girl."

"And the coin?"

"Odd thing, you know. It's an old French coin, one that I don't think I've ever seen before. Definitely doesn't belong to us, so I have no idea where it came from. I've got it here..." Lionel went to the hall stand and pulled out the drawer, fishing around for a few seconds and then drawing a coin out and putting it into Sherlock's hand. "I don't know anything about coins, I'm afraid."

"An _Écu d'or à la Couronne_," Sherlock muttered, sliding the coin between his fingers.

"What's that?" John frowned.

"It's a medieval French coin, probably minted during the reign of Louis XI," Sherlock explained, handing the coin back to Lionel. "Late fifteenth century. Hundred Years' War period. Quite rare and valuable, and a very odd thing to find in an English country rectory."

Lionel was smiling as he led the party down the hall. "Oh, that's not the most odd thing you'll find here," he said. "If you'll come into the front room, I'll show you what I mean."

He led them into what had clearly once been the drawing room; it was almost devoid of furniture, except for one sofa and a small wooden cupboard. He opened the cupboard and drew a rounded object wrapped in brown paper out very carefully with both hands.

"This is Marie," he said, speaking with some affection. There was a brief rustle as he removed the brown paper and revealed a grinning, stained human skull. "Well, we _call_ her Marie."

Lestrade gaped. "Where the hell did this come from?"

"She was in the cupboard when we moved in. Just as she was, wrapped in brown paper. Mrs Smith, the previous rector's wife, said she found her in the cupboard like that when _she _moved in, twelve years ago."

"And before that?" Lestrade persisted.

"Who knows? I checked with the Bull family records. According to legend, this is the skull of a French nun who occupied a nearby convent in medieval times. She fell in love with a monk from a monastery at Bures."

"Where's that?" John asked.

"About eight miles that way." Lionel pointed vaguely. "Just a little hamlet, like this one. Legend has it that the lovers tried to run away together, but they were caught. He was hanged, she was walled up in the convent and starved to death. Then the convent was demolished during the Dissolution and the skull ended up here. I don't know how true the legend is, but I think the Reverend Bull must have believed it, or at least wanted to. You can see the fireplace..."

He pointed, drawing their attention to the ornate marble centrepiece to the room. The edges were festooned with a muted criss-cross pattern and on either side, two solemn monks were carved into the marble.

"And the rest of... Marie?" Lestrade of the Yard seemed very uninterested in the Victorian excesses of the fireplace.

Lionel shrugged. "Wouldn't know."

"And it clearly didn't occur to you, or to the Smiths, to turn in a found body part to the authorities," Sherlock remarked.

"You can talk," John muttered.

It had taken John only a couple of days of living at Baker Street to investigate the strange matter of the skull on the mantelpiece. Adult, female, and probably at least a hundred years old, which effectively ruled out her ever being a "friend" of Sherlock Holmes in life. Since any investigation into her death was likely to lead nowhere, John had never pursued the matter.

"Luckily, I don't think we're looking at a murder victim, Lestrade – or at least, not a recent one." Sherlock was examining the skull carefully; then he shoved it at John as if it had been nothing more exciting than a lump of wood. "And, I must point out, not your nun of legend. More likely to be the monk."

"Seriously?" Lionel looked surprised and a little disappointed.

"Afraid so. Gendering a skull without the rest of the body is an inexact science, but judging from the ridges in the cranium and the eye sockets I would say male, mid to late thirties. John?"

"Yeah," John agreed automatically. Forensic anthropology was far more Molly's division than his own.

"Probably as medieval as the coin, however," Sherlock conceded.

"All the same," Lestrade said, "Scotland Yard would like to have a look at that, thank you very much, Reverend Foyster. I'll call the local force and have them pick it up and send it on for analysis."

Lionel shrugged. "As you like," he said happily. "Now, there's something else you gentlemen may want to have a quick look at, before it disappears. Down this way..."

He led them further down the hall to an unobtrusive spot just under the staircase, in a passage so narrow the four men jostled each other for room. Sherlock, at the forefront of the group, made out the dim lines of something scribbled in a childish but cursive hand on the wall:

_Marianne_

_Let me out_

Below it was inscribed another message: _I cannot understand. Please tell me more – Marianne._

The majority of the second message was in urgent capitals, except for the flowing script of Marianne's name.

"And I suppose this appeared spontaneously," Sherlock remarked to Lionel.

"Oh yes, they all do."

"They "all" do?"

"We get quite a few of these little messages." Lionel sounded quite matter-of-fact about it. "They appear out of nowhere and disappear within a day or two, usually. Marianne and I found this one when we were unlocking the place for you this morning, just before I saw her off on the train. She wrote the reply, of course. She's done it a few times, and I did once, too."

"And does the mysterious writer respond?"

"Sometimes. Never in a way that really makes sense, though."

"How old did you say your children were, Lionel?" John broke in. Lionel grinned.

"Ashleigh is three," he said. "And Jamie is eleven months. But I – "

"Don't be stupid, John," Sherlock said. "No three-year-old can write in cursive five and a half feet off the ground. This was clearly written by an adult."

"I -"

Before John could continue, Sherlock touched his arm. "She's writing them to herself," he said in his ear. "You can see the similarities in how the letters are joined, and the way the capital M is formed. Reverend Foyster," he said in louder tones, "if I could, I'd like handwriting samples from everyone who has regular access to the house."

* * *

Molly rarely had the energy or inclination to examine peer reviewed autopsy files on her days off, but this was different. Logging into the intranet system of files from the time of John's departure at seven-thirty until lunchtime – with only a few interludes to feed, change and entertain Charlie in between – there were now four more names in conjuction with _Sadler. _Molly murmured them to herself, deeply troubled. They were _Tay, Askham, Khatri _and _Moorehouse. _All of them had lost their children. The Khatris and Askhams had never been able to meet them beforehand and, so far as Molly could see, none of them had given express written permission for Barts to retain tissues from their babies.

The supervising pathologist in all four cases was the same: Professor Ross Harding. And there was another name that had come up again and again, one which made Molly feel slightly sick: Berrimer Pharmaceutical Company.

And now her upcoming evening stood on a dilemma she had never thought she would have: whether to take her own baby into the chemical-ridden morbidity of the specimen supply room of Barts pathology department, or to leave her in the overnight care of the only close friend or relative available - her recovering-alcoholic paternal aunt.

After an hour of deliberating, she picked up the phone and dialled. Harry answered it brightly in three rings.

"Molly," she said without bothering with the greeting beforehand. "Ooh, don't tell me. Have you finally got sick of John and booted him out?"

"No, I – "

"No, wait, I've got it. He's knocked you up again!"

Molly winced. "No," she said. "Harry, I was wondering, if you're not very busy, would you be able to come over and babysit Charlie tonight? I might be gone a while, so you'd have to sleep over, but, um..."

The silence on the end of the line conveyed more about Harry's surprise than any words could have. She had been told on no less than ten occasions that she was never going to be allowed to babysit Charlie unsupervised. "What's this about?" she demanded.

Molly shut her eyes and exhaled. "Promise you won't tell John," she said. "Or, well, anyone."

"Consider it promised."

"There was a little girl who died in surgery last week... we did her autopsy at Barts. Well, my boss did. And he retained her organs and he shouldn't have, Harry. It's illegal to do it without permission..."

There was another brief pause on the end of the line. "Also," Harry said, "it's really bloody horrible."

"Yes, it's really bloody horrible. And I just had a look at a few more case studies and... there were four more."

"Four more what?"

"Four more times Barts has kept something when we didn't really have permission. A thyroid gland, a liver, and... two miscarried fetuses which may have been bought from another hospital. I need to go in tonight and see if I can find any more... and see if I can find why they weren't signed off on and what happened to them after Barts took them. I can't go during the day..."

"Because you'll get interrupted or... caught?"

"Exactly."

Harry floundered again for a few seconds. "Molly," she said, "if John finds out that you left a lush like me in charge of Charlie, he's going to flip his shit and frankly, I think you'd prefer to be caught by your boss."

"I doubt it. If John asks, I'm just going to tell him the truth. I don't think you need to worry about that."

"I might... do something wrong with her, Moll."

"I trust you, and we don't have any alcohol in the house."

"At all? You know I once drank a bottle of straight vanilla essence, right?"

"Harry, you've been sober for nearly a year. Please, could you do this for me?"

Down the line, Harry gave a light sigh. "I've missed Sprout," she admitted. "Funny little bugger she can be sometimes. When do you want me to come over?"

* * *

_**A/N- **__As per my usual writing habits, the details are as in real life. However, the given names of the Foyster children have been changed, since I think they may still be living. And the issues Molly is investigating did NOT happen at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but they did occur at other hospitals: most notably, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. _

_If you're still reading and enjoying, reviews or comments of any kind are very, very, very appreciated. x_


	6. Ghost Stories

Lionel soon left the three men to look at the rectory on their own that afternoon, though before anything Sherlock, who regarded his phone as a sort of life support, brought a generator out of the car boot so that they could all plug their mobile phones in.

"That's sort of cheating, you know," John told him, though he'd plugged his phone in like the other two under the stellar excuse that he had a young family and needed to be contactable. "I thought we were going to do this the old-fashioned way. Candles and draughts, and things that go bump in the night."

"Without any electricity, looks like there'll be plenty of bumping into things in the middle of the night," Lestrade said. "Come on, let's get our bearings."

There was much to explore – twenty-three rooms, including what seemed to be an endless supply of bedrooms and a small chapel in an upstairs corner that had apparently been used by Reverend Bull and his swarm of children for private worship.

"What, they couldn't be bothered wandering across the road to the actual church?" was Lestrade's comment, leaning out the chapel window and looking across to it. "Well, I suppose this is more convenient. Fourteen kids. Christ, Mrs. Bull was either a lunatic or a saint."

"1860s," Sherlock reminded him. "I think the Reverend Bull was more likely to be the sainted lunatic, and his wife didn't have a lot of say in it."

"True, that. At least she had a big enough house to lose all those kids in."

"Lose" was the order of the day. The four storeys - there was a sub-level dedicated to what had once been the servant's quarters, and one below consisting of windowless storage cellars – were built in a meandering sort of rectangle around a central courtyard, paved with cobblestones and now overrun with dank weeds. As they split up to explore passage after passage, even Sherlock, who knew every street in London, had once found himself in the courtyard when he had been trying to find the front door. Lestrade had been stranded there no less than three times.

"You need a compass and a map on you at all times, mate," John told him, on finding him again.

"It's like the bloody Bermuda triangle." Lestrade looked up at the second-storey windows and pointed. "So that's the chapel there? I can't navigate from the bedrooms. They all look the same."

"Chapel, yeah." John pointed to a ground-floor doorway. "That passage runs past the kitchen and on to the front door."

"So I've discovered," Sherlock broke in, and both of them jumped as he appeared in the doorway directly opposite the one John had pointed out. "Odd acoustics," he went on. "I could hear both of you talking clearly from the front drive. And a person on the stairs can be heard in the kitchen, too. It's suggestive. And so is this... come and look."

He led them through the passage he'd just come through and back out to the path. As they walked toward the drive, he pointed to what had once clearly been a ground-floor window and was now bricked up completely.

"Bricked up," John commented unnecessarily. "Why?"

Sherlock shrugged. "I suspect Lionel Foyster could tell us."

* * *

Lionel was back at five, and seemed surprised they had even noted the bricked up window.

"Oh, yes," he said vaguely. "That's been bricked up since the Bulls lived here a hundred and fifty years ago. Dining room."

"Yes," Sherlock said tersely. He'd already checked.

"Legend has it that they bricked it up because the ghost nun wouldn't stop peering in at them during dinner," Lionel said. "But really, it seems it was because everyone on the _road_ could see the family eating dinner. Bull was an odd thing. Suffered from narcolepsy, I've heard, and spent most of his latter days sleeping out in the summerhouse out back. Sleeping in public? Fine. But heaven help people who saw you doing such a terrible thing as _eating_ _dinner_."

"That does seem odd," Sherlock said. "And you also seem to know a great deal about the Bulls, Reverend."

Lionel smiled, the edges of his eyes crinkling. "I'm a descendant of them, as a matter of fact... and I do a lot of genealogical studies."

"A descendant? That's a bit of a coincidence," John said. "I mean, that you'd be a minister of the same parish all these years later."

"Not at all. We're a churchy family, as it were, since three of the original Bull sons went into the church, and then their sons, and so on. I suppose it's only natural that the men who answer the parish call of Borley are people who were raised here and can _stand_ the place." Lionel grinned.

"Were you actually raised here at the rectory, then?" Sherlock asked.

"Not quite – Long Melford, nearby. But I did visit here a lot while I was growing up. A great-uncle of mine had the parish then, and he lived here with his maiden sisters, Aunt Alice and Aunt Frances."

"And did you ever know anything odd to happen here when you were a child?" Sherlock persisted.

"Not that I can remember, but I'm not psychic, like Marianne is." Lionel spoke without any apparent sarcasm. "But Eric could tell you more about his own experiences of the rectory, too."

"Eric?"

"Eric Smith, the previous rector. He's actually my second cousin, though I didn't know him well until Marianne and I took the parish from him."

"But you know him well now?"

"Quite. Actually, he and his wife are hosting us at the Manor. I've just come over to say – Marianne and the kids are home, and Price has just arrived, and the Smiths would like to invite you to dinner. I doubt you'll get much of a feed here."

* * *

Harry Price had very much arrived and was in the middle of being his usual overbearing self, though Sherlock noted with some relief that he'd apparently come alone. After giving him a polite greeting, he dismissed him and gave his attention to the other members of the dinner party, and to the house itself.

Of the Smiths and their home at Borley Manor, Sherlock quickly discovered very little could be said and even less of it was interesting. But Marianne Foyster was another matter altogether.

She had been sitting in the drawing room armchair as the guests greeted her husband and the Smiths, watching them, an open book idly on her knees. Sherlock, finally able to give her enough attention to inspect her, found her to be a dark-haired woman in her early thirties. She was plain-faced and simply dressed, her figure at least temporarily spoiled by the rigours of producing and raising two small children who were presumably upstairs. Stubby fingers. Muddy complexion. So far, Sherlock thought, completely ordinary. But as she finally stood up to greet the newcomers, her eyes lit up into keen intelligence.

"Mr. Holmes," she said, shaking his hand. Her voice was a good match for her appearance, and nothing remarkable, with faint hints of an estuary accent. "You look just like your photograph."

"I hope I live up to the hype," Sherlock said dryly.

"So do I," she said. "Somebody's got to get to the bottom of this." She glanced at Price, who was just then looking at the skirting boards and remarking to Eric Smith that he could definitely feel an unearthly presence in the house. "Because I doubt it's going to be him," she said in tones barely above a whisper. Her face sprouted unexpected dimples when she smiled.

"I suspect that there's very little to get to the bottom of, Marianne," Sherlock responded, not even realising he'd fallen instinctively into addressing her by her first name without being prompted.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Oh, your husband may totally believe you're psychic, but I'm afraid you're going to have to work hard to keep up that pretence with me," he said, leaning in close enough to not be overheard by the others. "I think you'll be a Type C client."

"Type C?"

"Yes. There are three types of clients. Type A – overflowing with gratitude. Type B – No idea in the world just happened, but pleasantly ignorant. And Type C – ready to take out a contract on me for exposing their own interests. You may regret asking me here, Marianne."

"I didn't ask you here," she said. "Harry Price did, and for some reason, Lionel agreed to it. But still, I'm very interested in how you're going to go about this investigation, Sherlock."

Sherlock was taken aback briefly - he'd rarely seen clients who were anxious to call him by his first name. He was about to respond when Mabel Smith, a bustling, asthmatic little woman in her sixties, appeared at his elbow. "I forgot to ask Lionel to check," she said anxiously. "You're none of you vegetarians, are you?"

"Not last I checked, Mrs. Smith," Sherlock said politely. There was something about Mabel Smith that reminded him of Mrs. Hudson.

"Oh, I'm so glad. I was wondering what on earth you'd eat if you were – I'm always like that, never ask these things until it's too late. Can never get a meal on in time, either, seems. Everything's in danger of being overcooked if we leave it for much longer. I'm sorry to rush you to the table."

* * *

Nobody objected to being rushed to the table. Judging from the aromas coming from the kitchen, Mabel Smith might have poor time management, but she had excellent culinary skills. Her husband Eric was a wizened little man of seventy-two, with a deep voice that belied his small stature, and a laugh that was usually funnier in itself than whatever it was he was laughing at. Looking at him, Lestrade's mental images of the original Bull family underwent a rapid readjustment. They probably weren't a family of sober no-fun puritans taking cold showers every day, after all. More than likely, they were a bunch of bored kids with a sense of humour like their descendants' and a whole rectory full of weird acoustics and confusing passages to wreak fun havoc in, at the expense of gullible parishioners.

"Seen any ghosts yet?" Eric Smith asked him. Lestrade had already noticed that when he was addressing the three of them in general, Smith tended to direct his remarks at him. Probably, he thought idly, some sort of respect thing. He was the only one of them who had an official police title, since Consulting Detective and Consulting Detective's Handler weren't really ones respected by the higher powers of the Force.

"No." He smiled. "But I'm hopeful."

Smith laughed, a loud donkey-bray, and slapped his knee as if Lestrade had just made an hilarious joke. "You don't really believe in that sort of thing, do you?" he boomed. Lestrade fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering if he was about to offend someone.

"Dunno," he said finally. "You have to admit that sometimes things happen and you're not sure why. When I was..." He stopped, glancing briefly at Sherlock. But Marianne, who was sitting in between Sherlock and her husband, was smiling. She clasped her hands.

"Don't stop, Inspector," she said eagerly. "I love hearing about this this sort of stuff. You say you've seen a ghost?"

"No," Lestrade admitted, shifting again. "I don't even know if I believe in them, but... well. My old man was a carpenter, and when I was a teenager, I'd sometimes go with him on the job on the weekends and holidays. He thought I'd go into the business too, probably."

"You must have disappointed him so much," Sherlock said drily.

"Sherlock," John murmured from beside him. He'd just then been having a lively conversation with Harry Price about how religious beliefs were not in fact the same thing as believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden, but both of them were now listening on. Lestrade had the floor.

"So anyway, one summer just before I left school, we were on a project out in the countryside near Taunton – some guy had an old manor house out there and there was a sort of cottage on his property called The Dovecote," he said. "Apparently when the monasteries got dissolved, the guy who owned the property then gave refuge to a dozen monks from a nearby monastery that got burned down. They lived there for a few years, then seems they wandered off, and God knows what happened after that."

"Ah, another religious haunting," Price said. "It's just as I was saying to you, Dr. Watson. Religious feeling produces powerful emotions that can sometimes remain in the world long after the people who felt that way are gone. I suspect that's what we're dealing with in this case."

John refused to take the bait, and after a pause, Lestrade continued. "Anyway," he said, "so I went with my dad – he was the foreman, about to retire - and about ten other guys from the construction company to relay the floor in the Dovecote. Pretty standard job, nothing memorable about it, but then we'd come in of a morning or after a break, and someone'd been moving all the tools."

"Moving them?" John echoed.

"Well, not throwing them around or anything. I thought it was like someone was coming in, picking them up, having a look, and putting them down again."

"Likely someone was," John countered. "Summer. Bored teenagers. Mucking around on construction sites can be a great way to pass the time."

"I know. But we locked the place up when we weren't there, and Dad had the key."

"But the man who lived in the manor also had a key," Sherlock broke in.

"Yeah, but he was in New Zealand at the time. So anyway, Dad said we should lay down chalk dust to see if we were imagining things, or if the tools really were moving around when we weren't there."

"And were they?"

"Yeah. Not by much... like I said, pick up, put down. But definitely moved. We got the floor finished and when the guy who owned it came back to pay Dad for his work, Dad said something about the whole business to him, and he didn't seem surprised – he just said, 'Oh, that was more than likely just the monks.' And here's the other thing. You can imagine ten blokes working with hammers and nails and saws and drills, well, you get a lot of... well it's hardly ever polite, is what I mean. But the whole time we were working that job, everyone got this sort of _calm_ over them. I dunno what it was, but it ended up in more pleases and thank yous than I've ever heard in one place in my life, and nobody swore up a storm, not even the guy who ended up smashing his thumbnail with a hammer. I can't explain it."

* * *

"None of that actually happened," Sherlock remarked to Lestrade as they walked back across the road at nine-thirty. Although Harry Price had taken a hotel room in nearby Sudbury, he had suggested he come with them to sit in vigil at least until midnight, awaiting any forthcoming paranormal phenomena.

John considered "sitting in the cold and dark and not speaking for hours" to be the equivalent of night patrol without the adrenaline, and therefore possibly the most boring thing he'd ever heard of, but Price had been insistent. The rectory in front of them was silent and still, and Sherlock was fumbling in his pocket for the keys to the front door.

"Hmm?"

"The Dovecote. You were making that up."

"Wasn't," Lestrade protested.

"Always so ready to dismiss anything you don't understand, Mr. Holmes," Price said amiably. "I think of the three of you, Inspector Lestrade might be the most psychically receptive."

"He's definitely the most receptive to having things thrown at him," John said.

"Oh, don't try to butter him up." Sherlock ignored John's remark. "You'll remember that Inspector Lestrade is also the one who fooled you into making psychic contact with a woman who isn't even dead."

"Look," Lestrade broke in before a squabble could erupt. "I'm not saying there were ghost monks floating around, I just told it how I remember it. Probably the property owner was playing a trick or something. I can't guarantee there wasn't a third set of keys, and now that I'm a police officer, I think it's the most likely answer. I just think it's a lot of effort to go to play a trick on some carpenters... Christ, it's dark in here," he muttered as they stepped into the hall.

As John lit a match and fumbled for the candle on the hall stand, Sherlock suddenly shushed them to silence.

John flinched as the match burned his fingers and shook it out, the lit candle in his other hand. As he raised it to see the others better, they heard it – a loud thump from one of the rooms upstairs.

In the flickering candlelight, John and Lestrade looked mutely at each other.

After a pause, the thump was repeated. Then there was a choked, wet gasp, and what sounded like someone dragging something heavy across the floor above.


	7. Nun's Walk

Sherlock snatched the candle out of John's hands and charged up the staircase with it, the flame streaming out like a tiny comet. By the time John and Lestrade had made their way up in the dark, Price fumbling along behind, Sherlock was in action, flinging open the closed bedroom doors and searching around in the darkness beyond them. He emerged from the third bedroom from the top of the stairs just as John reached the landing.

"Anything?" John asked him hopefully.

Sherlock shook his head. In the light of the candle, his sharp cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes made him look almost ghoulish. "Nothing," he said through gritted teeth.

"Well, keep _looking_, then." Lestrade now had his mobile phone out and was using it as a torch; he opened the next door unconcernedly and stepped inside. "We all heard it, so something had to have made it, for God's sake."

"What is it you were saying about ghosts before, gentlemen?" Price asked a little smugly. But Lestrade, re-emerging from the fourth bedroom door and reaching out for the door handle of the fifth, scoffed.

"I'm not worried about ghosts," he said acidly. "I'm a bit worried a _real human being_ was up here getting themselves smacked over the head, 'cause that's exactly what it sounded like. Anything, John?"

John had by now also got his phone out and had just emerged from the sixth room along. He shook his head.

"Rats," Sherlock suggested a little weakly, running his hand through his hair and looking around as if he expected the solution to be written on the wallpaper. "Just rats..."

"Yeah, really heavy rats," John agreed.

"We've never heard the natural sounds this house makes at night, and we still can't eliminate the possibility of fraud," Sherlock responded crossly. "But we've established that the house has strange acoustics and can't be..."

He trailed off. From the kitchen directly underneath him, there was a high, tinny clanging noise, echoing sharply in the still house.

"All right," Sherlock said loudly. "That really _is_ the rats. The servant's bells are suspended on old wires that run inside the walls. The rats run along the wires, and their weight is what sets off the bells. Mabel Smith told me that tonight."

"I think I'd prefer the ghosts, if I'm honest," John muttered. In the three years he'd spent in Afghanistan, he'd largely got used to the spiders and cockroaches and scorpions. But he had never learned to accept the rats.

Sherlock was looking suspiciously at Harry Price, who held his hands up in protest. "Don't look at me," he said. "I've been beside you the whole time. You can't blame this on me!"

"That sounded quite defensive – considering the fact that nobody has accused you," Sherlock said. Then he took a deep breath and scruffed up his hair. "Well," he conceded, "there's nobody here, and we don't have enough light to search the house until morning."

"So what do we do?" John asked.

"What we always intended," Sherlock replied. "We sit and we listen. I think it would be better if we split up, though, at opposite ends of the floor. John, Lestrade, you two take one of the bedrooms at that end of the corridor..." He pointed down the passage. "Mr. Price, I think you and I should team up for tonight. I think I'd like to keep an eye on you."

"Master bedroom," John said suddenly.

Sherlock frowned. "What?"

"You two take the master bedroom. It's on this side of the house, and it's the only one I've seen with an actual bed in it," John said. "Don't make me nag you, Sherlock."

* * *

"So. My German-speaking, American sister."

Harry Price had been fiddling with a small digital recorder in the corner of the master bedroom; at Sherlock's voice, he looked up. Sherlock had been sitting diligently, but after two hours of, as he triumphantly announced, absolutely nothing happening, he'd got up and moved onto the bed, where he was sprawled out on the mattress like a tiger in the sun.

"I'm sorry?" Price said innocently.

"My sister. How did you know about her?"

Price looked confused for a second. "Oh," he said at last. "You know how, Mr. Holmes."

"No, try again," Sherlock said inexorably. "Mediumship is entirely fraudulent, so you researched me. And given my father's previous line of work, you went to a lot of trouble with it. I'm only going to ask you once more, Mr. Price. Why?"

Price was silent for a few seconds. "You can say it all you like," he said finally. "But I didn't research you, Sherlock Holmes. I know almost nothing about you. And I've got no reason to lie about that."

Sherlock scoffed and sat up awkwardly. He'd taken his much-hated pills an hour before, and was a little light-headed for it. "You've plenty of reason to lie," he said. "You make money out of telling people lies."

Price smiled. "You're quite right about the show," he said. "We use actors, plant spies among the real members of the audience... you name it. Are you really so shocked about that? It's television. People watch to be entertained. Psychic phenomena can't be produced on cue, that's the problem with it. And nobody's going to want to watch a show where absolutely nothing happens and the medium doesn't make contact with anyone. So we help it along. But to say that this makes everything fraudulent... well, that makes about as much sense to me as claiming that the existence of a hundred servants proves that there is no master."

Sherlock turned his head toward him, but said nothing.

"I've got genuine abilities," Price said. "I've had them since I was a kid. When I wasn't long out of nappies, I told my mother all about the house she grew up in as a kid. They moved to the other side of England before she was married, and I'd never seen a photograph of it. How do you explain that?"

"I doubt you remember telling your mother this," Sherlock said, uncomfortably reflecting on memories of his own from early childhood. "You have only your mother's word for it that this even happened. And even then I imagine confirmation bias comes into it – you said what she _wanted_ you to say about the house. She believed in your abilities, didn't she?"

"Does," Price corrected him. "She's ninety-four, but still kicking. And of course she does. You don't see a person prove over and over again that these things are real and still deny it. Wouldn't you agree that _that_ would be an example of confirmation bias?"

Sherlock grunted and rolled back over carefully, looking up at the dim outlines of the threadbare bed-canopy above.

* * *

"So, Mel...?"

"Shut it, John," Lestrade said crossly from where he was curled up on the floor, trying to doze with only a sleeping bag for a mattress. He'd just decided that this was in some ways worse than camping – grass was softer than floorboards. "I don't know yet."

"Why're you dragging your feet?" John asked him curiously. "No, I mean, why _really_. 'Cause Molly says Mel isn't buying that whole 'kids' thing, and I'm not sure I'm buying it either."

Lestrade shifted feverishly, trying to find a more comfortable position. Across the room from him, John was sprawled out on his sleeping-bag mattress, as content as if it were a king-sized bed in the Ritz penthouse.

"I really buggered things up with Julie," he finally said.

"She's the one who had an affair or three."

"Is she?"

There was silence for a few seconds. "Jesus, really?" John finally blurted out. "Who was it, Donovan?"

Lestrade groaned in exasperation and rolled over again. "All because Donovan was giving it to Anderson doesn't mean she was giving it to everyone," he said. "No, it wasn't Donovan. It was Lucy Parnell, if you really have to know."

"Parnell? Gregson's DS?"

"Yeah, she used to be my constable, until all that happened. Oh, I mean, nothing _happened_. It was only two or three times, and she didn't get all stupid about it and want me to leave Julie and the kids for her. It got awkward, that's all. I suggested she apply to change teams. Donovan got transferred across to me."

"Did Julie know?"

"Not that she's ever said. Like I said, it was over and done in a week. But that was before she started sleeping with Mark, so..." He trailed off.

"Okay," John said. "But that would have been years ago, right? Donovan's always been your DS, as long as I've known you."

"Going on nearly ten years ago."

"So what, you're worried you won't be able to keep the cue in the rack? If you haven't been getting around on Mel before now, I dunno why you'd want to start just because you put a ring on her finger."

"I've also got it on good authority that I'm a complete arse to be married to."

"Yeah, well, that's why you don't go to your exes for a character reference."

Lestrade sat up, yanked at the sleeping bag, and flopped back down again. "Could be wrong here, but I think I told you to shut it about five minutes ago."

"Fine." John yawned and paused, listening to the servant's bells clinking gently in the dark house. In the roof above, something made a heavy swooping noise, and then a squeak. Owls, of course. They always made such freakish noises when they were hunting... and hopefully, they were going to take care of the rats.

Lestrade lay tossing and turning for what seemed like hours after John had started to gently snore.

* * *

"Greg... wake up..." John shook him hard, and then shoved him. With a reluctant groan, Lestrade stirred and opened his eyes.

"Wossisit?" he mumbled.

"Greg, get _up_, I need a bloody witness for this!"

At the word _witness_, Lestrade opened his eyes properly and sat bolt upright. Few things had caused more trouble for his career than an unreliable or non-existent witness. He looked blearily across at John, who was standing at the window, a lit candle and candle-holder in his hand, and was beckoning him over.

"What?"

"Hurry up!" John hissed.

Lestrade got to his feet with a little difficulty, joining him at the window and looking out. It was the early hours of the morning and still dark; on the horizon only a light or two from a farmhouse twinkled. The garden below sat in silent repose, the close-mown grass giving onto an inky smear of trees that bordered the property. Away to the right and down the slope was the skeleton of the old summerhouse, where Reverend Bull had dozed away his last days; but neither John nor Lestrade were looking at the summerhouse. Near the border of trees, something pale was moving.

"Oh, _bullshit_," Lestrade said under his breath. "I'll never say it. I'll _never_ say I saw it..."

Only a woman could have walked with that kind of slow grace; she was slender and tall, her garments falling in bright, pale billows. There was a pearly luminescence about her, from the cloth covering her head to the tips of her skirt that trailed like moonbeams over the dark grass. Her face was turned away from the house, but even so, she seemed young and she seemed beautiful.

John turned, the candle still in his hands, and scrambled for the door. "Come with me," he muttered, not waiting to see if Lestrade was keeping up as he rushed down the landing and the stairs as fast as he could in the near-darkness.

Trying to find the back door was harder than expected, especially in the dark; by the time John had located it, Lestrade was on his heels. The door was unlocked, but stiff and reluctant to open, even against the pressure of John's shoulder. After a few jolts, it gave way suddenly; they both spilled out into the chilly rectory garden.

And she was still there.

Still maybe fifty yards off, and taking no notice at all of the arrival of two loud and strangers. She had her back to them both and was picking her way across the grass toward the line of trees, both arms hanging simply by her sides. In the few breathless seconds that followed, both John and Lestrade noticed that her bare feet made no sound on the grass beneath them.

"Do something," John said through his teeth.

"Do what?"

"I don't know, talk to her or something!"

"Why me?"

"Because you're the police -"

"What do you expect me to do, then – arrest her for being a ghost?"

John rolled his eyes. "God, fine," he hissed.

He had taken three or four hesitant steps toward the apparition when, upstairs, a thud and a rough male cry broke the silence.

* * *

John turned immediately on his heel and tore back inside, with Lestrade following behind. Despite the darkness he took the stairs two at a time, fumbling along counting doors in the corridor until he burst into the master bedroom without knocking. In the weak halo of the candle he held and the one sitting on Price's suitcase in the opposite corner, he found Sherlock sitting on the floor. He was breathing hard, supporting himself on his palms. Harry Price, fully dressed except for his jacket and shoes, was standing bewildered near the open window.

"What the hell happened?" John demanded, dropping to his knees beside Sherlock.

"I don't know," Sherlock muttered.

"You what?"

"I don't _know!" _he exclaimed. "We were standing at the window..."

John glanced over his shoulder at Lestrade. "You saw the nun, too?"

"We were standing at the window," Sherlock repeated staunchly. "Something grabbed me by the arm and threw me backwards onto the floor... oh, for God's sake, it wasn't Harry. He was beside me at the time, and couldn't have pulled at me like that."

"Can you get up?" John asked.

"Um. Maybe."

"Mr. Price," John said as he helped Sherlock to his feet, "you might have heard that Sherlock broke his back last Christmas. So if I find out you've been behind this throwing him onto the floor business..."

Sherlock cut him off with a cry, and he stopped short.

"That hurt?"

"No, I just make these noises for fun sometimes," Sherlock snapped at him. He was on his feet, but was bent at the waist and reached out to take hold of one of the bed posts.

John looked at him carefully for a few moments, as if weighing something up. "I'm going to the car for my case," he finally said. "Greg, gimme the keys."

"You're going to the car for your _what_?" Sherlock repeated as Lestrade took the candle out of his hands and went back along the corridor to the bedroom they'd been sleeping in.

"My medical case. I'm giving you a cortisone injection."

"Oh, for God's _sake_ – "

"You'll take the cortisone, Sherlock, or we're going back to London. Tonight."

"I'd like to see you make me." Sherlock's pupils narrowed with vim. But John smiled.

"Oh, I won't need to," he said. "I'll just ring Mycroft now, at..." He checked his watch. "At half-past two in the morning, and tell him you've been thrown onto the floor and done your back in. I'm pretty sure _he_ could make you."

"You wouldn't dare," Sherlock seethed, sitting down gingerly on the mattress just as Lestrade returned and put the car keys and candle in John's hands.

"You sure you want to go out there on your own?" he asked him. But John rolled his eyes.

"There's no such thing as a ghost nun."

"But we saw – "

"We really didn't. Don't move, Sherlock."

As he walked along the gravel front walk toward where the car was parked, listening to the sound of the gravel under his boots, John cast a glance or two around the side of the building where they had last seen the ghostly figure. Once he thought he caught a glimpse of silver from amid the trees lining the property, but there was no time to speculate on what he saw. He opened the car boot with a clunk, grateful for the familiar sound and the sudden beam of orange light it spilled on the inside contents.

Most of their luggage had been taken inside already, but there were a few items here and there that they hadn't bothered with. As he lifted the medical case out, something caught John's attention – a soft glisten of hard metal showing through the gap in a half-open, green hessian travel-bag. It looked almost like...

He frowned, leaning over to pull it out, and found himself holding a high-powered Beretta pistol.


	8. A Dangerous Game

"Greg, I think you should probably take Mr. Price back to his hotel now."

John had just returned to the rectory and was standing in the shadowy doorway, arms folded, medical case dumped casually at his feet. Lestrade glanced briefly over his shoulder at him, and then registered the look on his face. Sherlock, who was still sitting on the bed, had obviously registered it, too. Sighing, he took the keys that John held out to him.

"Okay, Harry," he said. "I'm pretty sure you're done here."

Price frowned. "What's going on?" he asked, as curious as a child. He was looking between Sherlock and John, but neither man so much as glanced at him.

"Obviously it's none of your business, or else we'd be telling you about it." Lestrade bounced the car keys in his hand. "Come on. That's enough excitement for one night."

Price followed Lestrade out of the room; they made slow progress down the dark stairs. John waited until he could hear the car being started before he drew the gun out of his belt and held it out to Sherlock, barrel down. "Sherlock," he said. "What the hell is this?"

Sherlock glanced at it, then raised his chin. "It appears to be a Beretta Px4 Storm," he said snippily.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, that's _exactly_ what it is." John spoke quietly. "It's not mine, and it isn't Greg's. So do you want to go ahead and tell me why you're suddenly carrying a weapon? _How_ did you get it?"

"How do you think?"

John filtered through various options in his head. Even on the black market, guns like this were difficult to find and purchase. Not the Homeless Network, then, which left one realistic alternative. "Why the hell would Mycroft give you a semi-automatic pistol?" he demanded.

"One may as well ask why it is that _you_ see the need to be armed at every opportunity."

"I'm _not_ armed at every opportunity," John said through gritted teeth. "And I certainly didn't bring a gun on what was supposed to be a harmless ghost hunt!"

"For God's sake, why are you making an issue out of this?" Sherlock put his face in his hands for a few seconds. "Look, after... I now carry a pistol for my personal protection. Does that shock you?"

John grimaced. "Protection, yeah? Well, a lot of good it'll do to protect you when it's in the car boot."

"Oh, make up your mind. Either you're concerned that I carry it or concerned that I don't!"

"I'm _concerned_ that you've now got a deadly weapon at your disposal and you're just leaving it lying around like it's a toy! You did _not_ need to bring a pistol on this case, and you carrying a gun around when you never did before is..." John trailed off, scrubbing one hand over his face for a second.

"Is what...?" Sherlock challenged him quietly. "You know as well as I do that I don't have PTSD."

"I'm not a psychiatrist," John said in much more gentle tones. "But I _do_ know you've had a rough few months, and if you're carrying this around for protection, you're as scared as hell of _something_. I also know you're an idiot who once scratched your head with the barrel of a loaded gun."

"I did not."

"You bloody _did_. With the safety off. And your finger on the trigger." John took a deep breath. "We've talked about this, Sherlock," he said. "If there's some problem, something you're afraid of -"

Sherlock howled in frustration, tearing at his hair. "Will you stop _treating me like a bloody child!" _

"I will when you stop _acting_ like one! When you start looking after yourself, taking your medication the way you're _meant_ to, going to doctor's appointments, eating and sleeping properly, and not smuggling around illegal weapons behind my back! Do you seriously think I _like_ having to worry about you all the time? You're more trouble to look after than Charlie is!"

Sherlock glanced up at him sharply, and, just for a moment, John could see that he was wounded by that last remark. "Well," he said bitingly. "I'm glad you finally told me what you really think of me. If I'm too much trouble for you to be bothered with, you're welcome to go home to your family."

John was silent for a few seconds. Then he nodded. "Okay," he said.

"... What...?" Sherlock suddenly looked alarmed.

"I don't know if you noticed or cared, but I actually made a sacrifice to come out here with you," John said. "So it's no hardship to go home. You and Greg enjoy yourselves without me, won't you?"

"John -"

But John was already halfway down the corridor by this time. After a shocked pause, Sherlock got up carefully, picking up the candle again and following him.

"For God's sake," he said as he arrived in the dark bedroom doorway. "Don't be ridiculous. I _need_ you in on this..."

John had been rolling up the sleeping bag he'd been using; he stood back up and turned to him, one eyebrow poised. "Oh, you _need_ me?" he said. "Really?"

"Yes, _really_. Do you think I'd burden myself with a partner on investigation for any other reason?"

"I was sort of hoping you "burden" yourself with me because you're my friend," John bit back. Then he chuckled grimly and shook his head. "How stupid of me. Of course, you don't have friends."

Sherlock sucked in a breath through his teeth, and it was totally unrelated to the jolt his spine had just taken. "Sorry," he mumbled.

John laughed again. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure you are. Just like you're sorry every time you act like a complete... and then you do it again five minutes later."

"You're an utter bastard for making me say this," Sherlock said, all in one low breath. "But I am _sorry_, all right? And I don't want you to leave, and I've been acting like – oh, God!"

Sherlock's tone of voice had changed so abruptly that John looked up, anxious. Sherlock was still holding the candle in one hand; he held it up against the wallpaper next to him in breathless silence. Taking a step forward, John could see dim, cursive letters slowly appearing against the background of blue ribbons and pink roses.

_Lestrade help lights mass prayers _

* * *

At dawn, Molly slid wearily into the driver's seat, slammed the door shut and pulled out her phone. No texts from Harry, which was probably a good thing – Charlie was probably behaving. All the same, she pulled up Harry's number; she answered a little groggily after three rings.

"Christ, Molly, it's half-past seven," she yawned.

"Sorry..."

Harry paused. Then, in much more alert tones, she demanded, "hey, are you all right?"

"Yes," Molly said. She swiped at the tears itching her cheeks and drew a soft breath. "I'm okay. I just... would you be able to hold on for another hour or two? I just need to go and talk to someone, but I shouldn't really bring Charlie..."

"Not a problem." Harry yawned again; there was a shuffle on her end of the line and a few muted footsteps. "Yep," she said in lower tones. "She's still fast asleep."

"How did she go?"

"Not a fan of pumpkin mash, apparently, judging from the way she threw it across the kitchen."

"... She threw it?"

"Oh, is that a new one? I'm honoured... and a word of warning, I think a lot of toddler tantrums are incoming, 'cause she's even more stubborn than her dad is, bless her. But not to worry, she likes chocolate custard, and Toby helped me get the pumpkin mess off the floor... is there _nothing_ that cat won't eat? Anyway. No, she was really okay, Molly. I let her stay up and watch Broadchurch with me – taped it for you."

"Thank you." Molly wiped her cheeks again. "I'll be home as soon as I can, Harry."

"There's no rush."

~~oo~~oo~~oo~~

Molly arrived at Mycroft Holmes's Whitehall office just after eight o'clock.

She had an idea that he always started work very early, but that he didn't always work from the office; and even if he was there, she had no idea how she was going to convince security that she was, for what it was worth, a friend of Mycroft's and needed to see him. Stephen Hassell's replacement was Establishment; a straight-spined, hard-mouthed man a few years older than Mycroft, and one who would never stand for nonsense. But to Molly's surprise, once she had explained who she was, he leaned over his desk and paged through to Mycroft's private office. After a few seconds, the man himself answered.

"Yes?"

"A Mrs. Watson is here to see you, sir. Are you available?"

"Mrs. Watson?" Molly heard the emphasis on her marital status, and suddenly remembered something Harry had told her during the trial. According to her, Mycroft had taken up her offer of a "listening ear" since the kidnapping of Stephen and Sherlock; but Mycroft, being himself, would never allow himself to divulge what was on his mind.

"Just phones me up and sits on the line, saying nothing," Harry had told her. "Oh, of course, _I_ talk, just to give him something to listen to. Last Tuesday night, he was on for nearly twenty minutes. I got out the Bible and read out all the smutty bits to him."

Once he'd clarified who he was about to speak to, Mycroft asked that Molly be let in; his PA directed her down the corridor, amid a bewildering array of identical doors. Before she could get herself lost, one of them opened, and he beckoned to her.

"Molly," he said calmly. "Good to see you again."

Molly scurried in ahead of him, wondering if she looked like the crying wreck she felt. Mycroft didn't remark on it or seem to notice it as he ushered her into a deep, padded armchair. He went to his desk, but stood in front of it, leaning back against it with his arms folded. Entirely businesslike.

But there was one thing that Molly, as well as everyone else, had registered for the first time during the Doherty and Merchant trial. It had been perfectly obvious to everyone for years that Mycroft Holmes dyed his hair. But now, silver, wiry little hairs sprouted unchecked over his ears and temples.

"How can I help you?" he asked.

She checked herself, suddenly feeling guilty. "I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I know you're at work and it's early and..."

"Not at all. My schedule is flexible. What can I do for you?"

"I just found out that my boss is... is doing something," she faltered. "Something horrible."

"And what's that?"

"Last week, a baby named Evie Sadler died during heart surgery, and we did the autopsy at Barts. And Professor Harding... he's the lab director, and he did the autopsy... he removed the thoracic organs without permission from the parents. And when I said I couldn't sign off on the peer review because of it, he told me that it was too late and those organs had already been... used... and destroyed."

Mycroft raised one eyebrow.

"And, well, I went through the records on the intranet and found four more autopsies he's done where organs got removed without permission. And then last night, I went to the lab and... and I found fourteen more... there were livers and thyroid glands and hearts and fetuses and..."

She trailed off, wiping her eyes again. Mycroft whipped a couple of tissues out of the box on his desk and handed them over unsympathetically. She wiped her eyes with them, unsurprised to find them as tough and abrasive as the man himself often was.

"But the thing is," she said, "I looked for evidence that Evie Sadler's organs had been experimented on the way Harding said they were. But no experiments on thoracic organs had been done on Smithfield campus since before Evie died, so he was lying to me..."

"Go on."

"And... while I located some organs in the specimen closet that didn't have proper paperwork, a lot of them just seemed to go... missing after they were taken, with no records of where they went. But Professor Harding has been liaising with a pharmaceutical company, Bessemer. And I – oh God, I think he's selling... them... to Bessemer in exchange for funding for the department..."

"In other words, he's trafficking human organs."

"Yes. And I – I've been doing some reading. Horrible things happen to whistleblowers. They get blacklisted from work. They get death threats. Their houses get burned down... some of them have to go into _witness_ _protection_..." She put her hand to her mouth for a second and swallowed down. "I need your help, Mycroft. I need to know that if I blow the whistle on Ross Harding, I'll have your protection."

Mycroft opened his mouth to reply, then promptly shut it again. He was looking at her with something very akin to reluctant admiration.

"I protected Sherlock," she went on evenly. "For two years. And it nearly cost me my marriage. It nearly cost John his life."

"Yes. That was very regrettable. I'm sorry that we asked so much of you."

"I don't regret saving Sherlock's life," she suddenly said. "But you told me I'd helped you, and you would help me if you ever had the chance. I need that favour now."

Mycroft sighed and got up to the other side of his desk. He opened a drawer, but appeared to be shuffling paperwork around rather than actively looking for something. "Molly," he said, "there are laws in this country protecting whistleblowers. But you're quite right – not everyone regards those laws, hence the reason they exist. If you speak out against the practices of this one professor, you may find yourself uncovering something bigger than you ever imagined, or can handle."

"I know." Molly made use of the tissue again.

"You'll almost certainly lose your position at the hospital. You will probably be put on administrative leave to begin with, and if they don't find some excuse to fire you, you may find that your relationship with your coworkers becomes unpleasant enough that you'll feel that resignation is your only option. You've worked at Barts for a very long time, haven't you?"

"Since I was a student. My... my dad was a forensic pathologist with the police... he used to take me there when I was a little girl..."

"I see. So you've a sentimental attachment to the place as well," Mycroft pointed out practically. "In addition, you need to count the cost of this on your family. You're what they refer to as the "breadwinner", aren't you?"

Molly nodded, reflecting, and not for the first time, how odd it sounded to hear herself described so. The _breadwinner_. It sounded like she spent fourteen hours a day down a coal pit.

"So if you find yourself without work, your family income may be severely compromised," Mycroft was saying. "And, assuming John is able to take on full-time work, you may be pushing him into work he's not willing to take. John is well-known to the legal system and the media, which may complicate matters. You also have a young child, and, if my observations are correct, you've recently started "trying" for another."

Molly flushed momentarily, but Mycroft appeared not to notice, and continued.

"Any decisions you make on the case will necessarily have to take all this into account," he pointed out, crossing his arms thoughtfully. "In short, my advice is that you need to draw up a risk assessment before you decide whether to speak out. And while marital relationships are not my area of expertise, I'd suggest you also discuss this with your husband before you do anything."

"Oh, yes." Molly wiped her eyes again. "Of course. Of _course_ I would – will."

Mycroft smiled briefly. "It never fails to surprise me, what people will do out of a sense of duty and altruism," he said. "I don't think I would take on that position – at most, I'd nudge others in that direction and hope they had stronger convictions than me in that area. But you're not that kind of person. So, although we're still talking in vague terms, I think I can say that if you want to bring this matter to the justice system, I'll work within my powers to... protect you... from reprisals. But do think it over, Molly. This could be a dangerous game indeed, and not for Professor Harding."

* * *

_**A/N** - Thank you again for reading. Reviews are extremely welcome - they help me write, and keep me motivated xx_


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